Calling all members with Laminate Wood Floors!! Opinions needed here!

[Bear L]

Scratches or not, get the kind that will best hide them and dirt - with grains and knots and color closer to your dog's hairs. =) Thickness matter, make sure it's not the thin kind.

I love mine.

For rugs, get the cheap kind with rubber backing, like those indoor/outdoor rugs or jute rugs. They help tremendously with slipping and avoids odors that high pile rugs tend to absorb.

[jprice103]

I have laminate in my family room, and let me tell you, it looks as good after 5 years as when we just put it down! It is a MUST for large dog owners! The dogs run in with muddy feet, and I just wipe with a wet paper towel and its back to perfect! Unlike having to get our my carpet cleaner and scrubbing and blotting in my living room on the carpet! They also sell some really good laminate floor cleaner that makes it shine like brand new. We do that once or twice a month.

I was VERY worried about going with laminate over real wood, but you can hardly tell the difference. And the new stuff they have our now looks even more real. We are planning on taking out all of the carpet downstairs in the next year and replace with laminate. I can't wait!

[TrickyShepherd]

Originally Posted by jprice103

I have laminate in my family room, and let me tell you, it looks as good after 5 years as when we just put it down! It is a MUST for large dog owners! The dogs run in with muddy feet, and I just wipe with a wet paper towel and its back to perfect! Unlike having to get our my carpet cleaner and scrubbing and blotting in my living room on the carpet! They also sell some really good laminate floor cleaner that makes it shine like brand new. We do that once or twice a month.

I was VERY worried about going with laminate over real wood, but you can hardly tell the difference. And the new stuff they have our now looks even more real. We are planning on taking out all of the carpet downstairs in the next year and replace with laminate. I can't wait!

That's what drew my SO to laminate. Many have told him the same thing... that it lasts without too much maintenance. I've never had laminate floors, so I am very nervous about trying a new flooring out.... it's not exactly cheap! I can't just say 1 year down the road... Don't like it, let's switch! lol!

But, at the same time... getting tile isn't an option since I'm not ripping my current tile up, and it's super expensive to get that installed. And I just can't keep carpet. I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping this works! From what it sounds though, we should be fine.

Originally Posted by Bear L

Scratches or not, get the kind that will best hide them and dirt - with grains and knots and color closer to your dog's hairs. =) Thickness matter, make sure it's not the thin kind.

I love mine.

For rugs, get the cheap kind with rubber backing, like those indoor/outdoor rugs or jute rugs. They help tremendously with slipping and avoids odors that high pile rugs tend to absorb.

Thanks for the suggestions! The color I posted here, when we brought it home we noticed it was still a bit light. We plan on going a little darker, so we don't see all the dog hair. Our tile is really light too... so the transition will be nice to darker wood color.

[TrickyShepherd]

Thanks for all the responses!! I am starting to feel better about this...

This may be a stupid question. But, from everything the store told us, and what I've been reading about water damage.... would mopping it a few times a week destroy it? I mop the house 1-3 times a week, depending what the dogs drag in. I sweep once a day.. sometimes twice.

(I've never had any sort of floor other then tile and carpet... so this is all REALLY new to me)

[tropicalsun]

We put in laminate after we lost everything in Hurricane Ike. Best choice we ever made.
Here's a pic...it runs through the whole house except the kitchen and bathrooms which are tile.

[jang]

I mop mine--but with one of those microfiber mops--so it is kind of a dry mop..I have heard you can use a steam cleaner on it, but I would not try that...regarding the water..dad's dog was very sick at the end and she had peed on the floor and dad did not see it for at least a few hours..maybe overnight..anyhow, the floor came up..swelled, if you will, a tad but has gone back to almost original look after time..you still can see it a little, but not as bad...we have our water bowls , one in dad's shower on a bath mat and one in the spare bedroom also on a bath mat and a carpeted room..Sib still slobbers up the hall way and such,, but it does not cause any damage...this will be fun..When all the work is done..It is fun to put your rooms back together...

[BroncoK]

We LOVE our pergo floors! But, some things we didn't take into consideration is that our house now echos quite a bit. Maybe not a big deal, but if you have sleeping toddlers like I do, it does make a difference.

We mop ours once a week, I have two wild crazy boys, and two GSD's! By the end of the week it NEEDS it! We use vinegar to mop our floors with, OR you can purchase a spray that they provide. We have both. I use the vinegar to kill the germs and the spray to make it look pretty (and in the event that there is vomit on the floor I use our steam mop, which they say NOT to use, but I can't help it.....) We also purchased the "textured" pergo flooring so that scratches don't show up as often (and from what I can tell, I don't think there are any scratches on it and we have had for two years now). I will also add on that where we kept our dogs water there is a little bubbling as well for us. They drool quite a bit man and if you aren't on top of it, it will hurt it. We learned the hard way .

[jang]

What is the difference between Pergo and laminant?

[TrickyShepherd]

Originally Posted by BroncoK

We LOVE our pergo floors! But, some things we didn't take into consideration is that our house now echos quite a bit. Maybe not a big deal, but if you have sleeping toddlers like I do, it does make a difference.

We mop ours once a week, I have two wild crazy boys, and two GSD's! By the end of the week it NEEDS it! We use vinegar to mop our floors with, OR you can purchase a spray that they provide. We have both. I use the vinegar to kill the germs and the spray to make it look pretty (and in the event that there is vomit on the floor I use our steam mop, which they say NOT to use, but I can't help it.....) We also purchased the "textured" pergo flooring so that scratches don't show up as often (and from what I can tell, I don't think there are any scratches on it and we have had for two years now). I will also add on that where we kept our dogs water there is a little bubbling as well for us. They drool quite a bit man and if you aren't on top of it, it will hurt it. We learned the hard way .

Originally Posted by jang

I mop mine--but with one of those microfiber mops--so it is kind of a dry mop..I have heard you can use a steam cleaner on it, but I would not try that...regarding the water..dad's dog was very sick at the end and she had peed on the floor and dad did not see it for at least a few hours..maybe overnight..anyhow, the floor came up..swelled, if you will, a tad but has gone back to almost original look after time..you still can see it a little, but not as bad...we have our water bowls , one in dad's shower on a bath mat and one in the spare bedroom also on a bath mat and a carpeted room..Sib still slobbers up the hall way and such,, but it does not cause any damage...this will be fun..When all the work is done..It is fun to put your rooms back together...

Yeah, not really looking forward to changing stuff around. But, I will be happy once it's all done.

And the mopping sounds like a pain. Kind of not looking forward to that. I think I have a micro fiber mop.... but, I still use a lot of solution. I mean, no one is allowed to walk on it for like... 20-30minutes. So it's not really a dry mop for us. lol I'll have to look into it a bit more.

We also may be getting a second quote from another place... they may have textured, so we may look into that too. I liked the textured.

Originally Posted by jang

What is the difference between Pergo and laminant?

From my understanding... Pergo is just a type of Laminate... a brand name. I could be wrong, but that's what it sounded like.

[jang]

Ours is textured..not smooth..We went to Lumber Liquidators...good prices and they are all over the country..