regarding the hardwood floor thread below...

[Sam3]

My wife wants to rip up the carpet in our living/dining room and replace it with a hard-surface flooring. I like carpet, but she doesn't, she says houses are easier to clean with hard surface flooring.

We are considering laminate which I would install, but I'd like to hear your opinions regarding laminate vs hardwood vs engineered hardwood for main room flooring and whether the DIY approach is OK or should a project like this best be left to pros.

Would the type of flooring make any significant difference in the house's value?

[Rolando]

I think of carpet as a sock you can never wash.... Love real hardwood, fake hardwood is ok, Tile is ok. Hell, I prefer Linoleum to carpet!

[Rolando]

Rolando wrote:
I think of carpet as a sock you can never wash.... Love real hardwood, fake hardwood is ok, Tile is ok. Hell, I prefer Linoleum to carpet!

As far as your question, real wood will increase the value, laminate is neutral. Consider bamboo?
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=bamboo+flooring&oq=bamboo+fl&gs_l=hp.3.0.0l4.271.1892.0.2912.9.8.0.1.1.0.242.1032.3j4j1.8.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.cP2DtgUAtgs&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=e0911e75caa7989b&bpcl=35466521&biw=1341&bih=917

[riley5108]

Sam3,

I agree don't go with the laminate floors. If you can do all the work yourself go with a good engineered hardwood flooring. I posted an answer to the flooring question below.

Good luck.

[Robert M]

Sam,

I will never have carpeting in my home. Ever. It collects dust and other allergens on top of normal day to day grime and and can never ever be cleaned to a satisfactory level. Even pro carpet cleaning can't get carpeting as clean enough for my taste.

My wife and I bought a new apartment in March and one of the first things we did was rip out the carpeting in the bedrooms. The sheer amount of grime in what looked like reasonably clean carpeting nearly sent me to the hospital. The crap floated in the air and eventually settled everywhere. It took a crew of three people two sessions to get rid of it all. That's how bad it can be with carpeting.

If you rip out the carpeting - something I recommend wholeheartedly - go hardwood and have a pro perform the installation. It's more than just cutting, placing and nailing the flooring in place. It's also about proper finishing. I just had the floors refinished in my apartment and they installed new flooring in the closets. While I could have done this all myself, I felt it wasn't cost effective. That and there is no way I could do the job as well as a pro. There is an art to installing wood, regardless of what others have said in the forum.

Ads for cleaning hardwood floors, you hit them with a vacuum and a swiffer. Easy and effective.

Robert

[mikebw]

Carpet is nice sometimes, but it will never last as long as a wood floor. We had the top and bottom floors (with stairs) redone in carpet about 2 years ago, then this year I redid the middle level with bamboo and I kind of wish we had done that upstairs too- in the more heavily trafficked areas as the carpet pile is starting to get crushed.

Another option is cork tiles, look it up, can be very nice.

[Pam]

I'm going for porcelain tile myself. The entire lower floor of my townhouse. It's as durable as it gets, easy to clean, and animal nails/pee/poop/vomit can't hurt it. The bedrooms will eventually get cork. I'm still undecided about how to handle the stairs.

[sekker]

We had the same questions 6 years ago when we moved. We ended up getting a demo home with only part of one level with flooring. This was great since we have allergies, and hardwood flooring really helps us with that health issue.

What we decided to do:

For the main floors (middle and top), we had professionals install hardwood (extending the existing flooring style throughout the level) and bamboo in the top level with the bedrooms. The bamboo still looks as new today as the day we walked into the house. It's really pretty IMHO and has worn better than the ash the builder used for the kitchen and dining room (which we extended to the rest of the floor like the dining room). If you USE your kitchen - something some modern folk and even some couples don't these days - I do NOT recommend hardwood for the kitchen. If you are washing your hands properly, the spilled water from that alone will wear down finish on even good hardwood.

We installed a quality laminate in the basement. Again, it has worn much better than the ash. It still looks the same as when we installed it. Professionals would do a better job of trimming, edging and finishing than we did. But it's a basement - I can still add some polish down the road should I need to. But if that were the look of the main floor, my house would have a lower quality feel to the space.

[dmann]

I have carpet in my bedrooms, tile in the bathrooms and kitchen and engineered hardwood in the rest of my condo.

The engineered product I chose can be refinished 3 times since it has a thick layer of quality wood at the top. Due to condo regulations, I could not do a nail-down traditional wood flooring.

I put in the first floor myself (I'm a girl, BTW and that was my first attempt at a project like that.) It was pretty easy. Unfortunately, I had a flood in my apartment and the whole floor needed to be replaced. That floor was done by professionals via my insurance company. Until the flood, I had no problems at all with the DIY floor.

I love the look of the cork and bamboo options out now and would definitely consider them if I needed to make a change.

DM

[OWC Jamie]

I've had wool carpet on stairs that stood up to several generations of kids.
One generation included a half dozen foster kids

unfortunately it was theater-burgundy red wool carpet