What you should do is to get a Flicker account and “follow” cb’s photos. So you don’t have to get a link each time.
Or bookmark the link so you always have it when you need it.
Or ask here if you lose the link. Some friendly poster will post it again for you!
I hate to bookmark, I am using three different browsers and all these apps on the phone, any bookmark will lost in the “seas”. Otoh I had to have a spread sheet to record my IDs and passwords, fortunately flicker is part of yahoo, yahoo is one of my major email provider so I have to remember how to logon.
I’m waiting for the day when we open something up and go “Look at this, well done, we need to save this”.
I’m working hard to figure out what we are going to do for flooring so I can schedule the subcontractor. The owners told me that they had hardwood floors under the carpet and they want to save them. That means we need to install new hardwood flooring for the kitchen and family room that will tie into the existing floors.
We took the carpet out of one of the bedrooms. Floors are in OK condition but they are a strange size. They are only 1 1/2" wide planks and only 3/8" thick. This means we have to be careful sanding them down. So I researched and can find the special white oak plans, but they cost more.
Today I tore up the living room carpet to make sure that the floors were the same and in good condition. OMG!!! horrid. I cannot even fathom how someone a long time ago let their floors get like this. They have huge water stains and I’m pretty sure it’s not water!
So, I had to break the bad news to the owners that we cannot save the living room floors (and they wouldn’t want to because the stains are unknown origin). This means that we have to lay a lot of new expensive strange 1 1/2" wide oak planks all over the house to match 1 small bedroom that might be worth saving. I have given them an estimate to put in good solid laminate floors throughout the house. Laminate is a good alternative for the neighborhood and will last better with dogs and kids.
I loaded some photos
It’s really unfortunate that there isn’t a HUGE budget for this. It might be easier to gut to the studs…and try again.
Absolutely!! There is that luxury vinyl plank stuff. Looks awesome and is very kid- and pet-friendly.
comes in many colors.
I have installed several thousand sq ft of TrafficMaster Allure (the regular stuff, not the Ultra). It has a lot of advantages:
- It floats, so you don't have to glue it down. Makes it quick to install
- The glue strips on the edges make for a waterproof floor, which makes it really nice for kitchens and baths
- It's pretty cheap compared to real wood.
It’s a great product for rental properties.
However:
- Because you can't install it flush against the walls, you either have to redo all the moldings or put in a quarter-round strip around everything, which I don't like the look of
- While it is thick enough to span fairly large gaps without sagging, you still need to prep the floor to make sure nothing sticks up, because anything that does will make the pieces separate and can eventually wear a hole in the floor
- Transitions through doorways are hard because of the door frames. The best way is to undercut the molding and frame so you can slide the flooring under it, but that can lead to other problems
- If the space gets too cold, the planks will contract and pull apart a bit. When it warms up they will not go back together, so you will have little black strips running through your floor where the adhesive strips have been exposed. Might not be a problem in SD, but in New Engand it's an issue.
And the biggest “problem” - no matter how nice it looks in the pictures, no one will ever mistake it for a real wood floor. It doesn’t look like wood, it doesn’t feel like wood, IMO.
Lately I’ve been using the “tile” versions, these actually look pretty nice in a kitchen or bath, and come in a bunch of colors and styles:
The rat invasion clearly predates the young couple buying the house and has been dealt with proactively by them. Seems to be done except for the yuck factor.
Where are they living while all,this is being done? It looks like the house is sort of gutted. Are they really in one bedroom and bath? Eating and cooking…where??
I’ve seen those thin planks before, but in much older houses. They are very hard to refinish because the are so thin - it’s not hard at all to sand down to the nails. And those stains will never come out without taking off a lot of wood, and even then they might not come out.
I think you are right, laminate is the way to go. If you aren’t going to tear the old floors up I’d throw a coat of poly on them to seal in whatever made those stains, just to make sure they don’t start to stink.
@BunsenBurner I love that flooring too! I had a commercial tenant install it, we loved it so much we have used it in our motor home, most recent flip house and cabin. IMO it’s nicer than a lot of hard surface flooring because it’s quieter too.
Wondering…would it be more cost effective to carpet the bedrooms? They don’t plan to live there forever.
We used the Allure in our family room over concrete. Works well and is very forgiving for pets. This was one of the MANY projects my dear sister did when she came out to help me after the heart attack. She re-leveled the floor and laid this in a day. The door transitions have come up over time (the screws didn’t hold in the concrete), but she and my niece are coming to DC for a band trip in late March and will stay for a few days afterwards, so we will brainstorm what we can do to fix it.
It’s not hardwood, but I don’t want to deal with the occasional dog piddle on real wood, anyway.
How good is their homeowners insurance? Starting to think maybe its time for a short or aberrant appliance to implode somewhere… >:)
The young couple are living in the master bedroom /bath addition in the back. They have set up a small kitchenette
There is a big piece of plywood and plastic covering the hallway. They have access from garage or outside door
Will that master bedroom and bath also need some work?
Back to my carpeting question. I know carpeting is NOT the flooring of choice… ur when on a very tight budget…maybe for the bedrooms, it should be considered.
CB…didn’t you carpet some of the bedrooms in the last flip?
I will put that forth as an option also. They might want to put new carpet into the bedrooms.
They want new flooring in their master bedroom also but that is going to be a challenge. It is full of furniture and stuff that they have crammed in there for 2 months. Have no idea how we are going to put new flooring i n. I’m guessing that it will have to be a Phase 2 type of thing. They can contract directly with the flooring guy to get it done later.