Recommended Flooring

[Lorelei]

Wow! I have never looked up stained concrete floors before, but the google images were sure impressive. Right now our floors are carpet, wood and that vinyl-type stuff that is supposed to look like tile. I've been wondering about slippage issues on the wood and the 'tile' (We are hoping to adopt very soon, so I've been trying to cover some possible problem areas beforehand).

I guess if it starts to seem too dangerous we can try and close off the two wood-floored rooms, since they are both connected on one side of the house, and truthfully, we don't go in them too often anyway. But, the kitchen is tile, and I'd think it would be wrong to keep a pup out of the kitchen! I know if someone tried to keep me out of a kitchen, I'd revolt.

Since the tile in the kitchen is the vinyl-type tile and not the pretty ceramic tile, I'm hoping it won't be as slippery.

Also, does anyone use runners for slippery areas that get a lot of traffic?

[ba1614]

We just built a couple yrs ago and went with hardwood throughout the top 2 floors, and the basement is just concrete with radiant in-floor heating installed.
I like HW because I can resurface it, (and change the stain color if I want) at least twice, usually 3 times, before needing to replace it. I do it myself, but I would imagine resurfacing would be at least as economical as hiring someone to re&re new material.

Ours is holding up pretty well, and our house is very busy. With a good quality central vac system, maintenance is very reasonable.

There are some great options listed in this thread, and for me personally HW works best, but I think it's safe to say that the one certainty is to stay away from carpet.

[KZoppa]

see after reading all the responses i'm startin to think i'm just weird but i HATE tile and other stuff like that unless its in the kitchen or the bathrooms. I cant stand having to sweep and mop every day. I'd much rather vacuum the carpets and clean them once a week. Plus my one year old shepherd has NO traction whatsoever so she's always slipping and sliding around if she does more than walk. Carpet for me!

[niordian]

I am thinking of hardwood as well, does the nails scratch the surface easily?

Originally Posted by ba1614

We just built a couple yrs ago and went with hardwood throughout the top 2 floors, and the basement is just concrete with radiant in-floor heating installed.
I like HW because I can resurface it, (and change the stain color if I want) at least twice, usually 3 times, before needing to replace it. I do it myself, but I would imagine resurfacing would be at least as economical as hiring someone to re&re new material.

Ours is holding up pretty well, and our house is very busy. With a good quality central vac system, maintenance is very reasonable.

There are some great options listed in this thread, and for me personally HW works best, but I think it's safe to say that the one certainty is to stay away from carpet.

[Jax's Mom]

Originally Posted by ba1614

I would imagine resurfacing would be at least as economical as hiring someone to re&re new material.

Actually it's ridiculously inexpensive if you do it yourself!
You can rent the tools from Home Depot and if you start in an area normally covered by furniture, you get the hang of it really quickly.

Noirdian, if you've never owned dogs before, I'd highly recommend the Traffic Master Allure flooring... It's matte enough to be slip resistant and doesn't show fur as much as shinier floors would.
I don't think there is a wood known to man that can stand up to a GSD and it can be very difficult to watch a dog destroy thousands of dollars worth of flooring almost immediately unless you love that dog very much LOL.
The first time put in hardwood, I sent my dogs to my parents while the $10k of it was installed.... I spent the weekend polishing and dusting it and installing protectors for the furniture. As soon as the dogs came home there were about 5 gouges just from their first path across the house... I was almost sick lol
The Allure flooring is about $1-$2/ft, installs really easily, no prep, waterproof and we finished a 10x10 room in an hour.

[ba1614]

Originally Posted by niordian

I am thinking of hardwood as well, does the nails scratch the surface easily?

We haven't experienced anything excessive, and we went with Maple, which is a little on the soft side.

[MaggieRoseLee]

I have a product similiar to the Allure Flooring and also love it. Really does look like wood, put down in 'planks' but it's vinyl AND waterproof! So the dogs don't scratch it and there are zero worries about spills and accidents.

I do NOT think Pergo is waterproof (I know the wood laminate I have in the guest room came with tons of scary DO NOT GET WET warnings that made that room off limits to pets completely.)

I bought a product called Konecto that also has style that LOOKS like tile but is softer and won't scratch. I got the wood one though.

Welcome to Konecto.

Konecto flooring, floors and discount wholesale Konecto from Flooring Market

You Tube

You Tube

[MaggieRoseLee]

Here's the Konecto tile flooring and what it looks like. I ALMOST got the tile look but decided on the wood look instead.

YouTube - Konecto Tile installation basics.avi

YouTube - Konecto Tile installation basics.avi

[doggiedad]

our floors are oak. they came with the house.
we have one area rug in the livingroom. our floors
are dull. they need to be refinished. the dog hasn't cause
much damage. a few slight scratches here and there.

my old house had random pine floors. we had the floors
heavily urathaned. two children, dog, 5 cats
and lots of children gatherings didn't destroy the floors.

[doggiedad]

is Pergo natural if not does it look
like real wood? at some point we're going to redo
our basement and we're thinking about
what kind of flooring.

Originally Posted by Stogey

Pergo ... hands down in my book.