<p>Our living room and kitchen are fairly closed off from each other… it’s difficult to describe. The two rooms are deep rectangles that run adjacent to each other. When you first walk into the house you are standing in a tiny little hall that runs into the kitchen and has the kitchen flooring, and to your left there is a step down into the living room. There is a wall separating the kitchen and living room the rest of the way with a cut out on the upper half. So you at certain points of the room you could see the flooring in both rooms, but they would only be right next to each other without the half-wall separation right where the step into the living room is. That’s why I feel like it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the woods don’t match perfectly-- an obvious laminate with a hardwood might not be a good pairing, but I THINK contrasting colors should look okay depending on what we pick. The thing is, I don’t actually really like the wood that’s in the kitchen, so my options are to pick something different for the living room or go with carpet. I don’t hate carpet, but it wasn’t what I had in mind and if we went with carpet we would probably get white, and that is probably not any more pet friendly than hardwood!</p>
<p>This entryway area where the step is is posing problems for me now painting-wise, too. I have two different shades of blue planned for the kitchen and living room. For most of the house this isn’t an issue because that wall with the cut out separates it, but where the little hall with the front door is they share a wall and I REALLY don’t want to carry either color over onto the whole wall, I want them to be two distinctly separate spaces (I am the rare bird that hates open floorplans, for example.) I’m trying to find out if there’s some kind of molding I can put in the doorway to split the rooms without it looking stupid.</p>
<p>ETA: We haven’t gotten any installation quotes yet, and haven’t really decided where to buy the floors yet, either. I was actually planning on keeping the existing carpet for a few years until I woke up yesterday morning and changed my mind-- we looked at home depot and lowes because we were there to buy moving boxes anyway. We’ll definitely shop around. I appreciate the tip, if we do go with hardwood we’re going to want all the savings we can get.</p>
<p>We had a local hardwood floor installer do our work. He bought the wood flooring, installed it, and did the finishing…and it was much less expensive than the big box stores. We were able to see his work in others’ homes and get references. With the big box stores, you do NOT get to pick your installer.</p>
<p>Completely agree with thumper. You also don’t get expert advice tailored to your specific home with the big box retailer. Go with a good local contractor that has a proven track record. People assume HD and Lowes are a bargain and they simply are not. You want not just an installer but an ADVISOR, and the big box guys doing the work are ONLY installers.</p>
<p>What about some stone tile (or tile which looks like stone or slate)? I think that would be preferable to white carpet in a house with dogs. Then you could get some pretty area rugs. This would be far more dog friendly in my opinion.</p>
<p>I prefer hardwood floors over the look of laminate. Except for the kitchen and bathrooms (tiles) and computer room (carpet), all the floors in our home including the stairs, upstairs bedrooms, hallways, bonus areas are hardwood. I do have a small dog but his nails dont scratch the surface. The hardwood is scratched when you drag shoes with dirt or sand and drag furniture and other decorative items such as sculptures or huge jars or potted plants that dont have felt underneath them across the floor. </p>
<p>You have to check the hardness of the wood floor you are purchasing. My floor is Santos Mahogany which has a high hardness rating and the color hasnt changed so far. </p>
<p>I think you should bring home sample planks and lay it beside the kitchen floor and check if you like the contrast. Look at it at different times of the dayearly morning, noon, dusk, evening so you will be able to see if the light affects your opinion about the wood samples you picked. Take pictures.</p>
<p>I have ceramic tile in the kitchen, but I would not buy a house without hardwood floors. Our oak floors are 80 years old. We had them refinished 21 years ago when we moved in, in a dark color with a satin finish poly, and after 2 kids and assorted dogs, they look the same. We have area rugs for looks more than use. Once every two years, we wax our floors in the high traffic areas. We have an electric buffer. I used to buff by hand in our last house, but this is so much better. I have never seen laminate that doesn’t look fake, and our floors are SOLID. If I were going into a new house, I would splurge on real wood floors, installed and finished after installation. Just a thing I have.</p>
<p>I agree. We have hardwood floors in our kitchen, but I would consider tile if it was pretty, high quality, and durable. </p>
<p>If I were the OP and did not want to go with hardwood floors because of the matching issue, I would definitely go with a beautiful stone or similar tile rather than the laminate. We have laminate in one small room in our house, and I just don’t care for it. It’s also not as indestructible as they would have you believe.</p>
<p>Since you don’t like the hardwood in the kitchen/entry, if the overall square footage isn’t huge, what about replacing it with the new wood at the same time you add the flooring to the rest of the space? It’ll cost more obviously but it’d then match and it’d be something you like.</p>
<p>We have solid oak planks all over our house…only carpet in the bedrooms. I love my floors!
My philosophy on the various dents and mars that have occurred over the last 11 years is that they are all little stories of happiness! There really are very few, as oak is a very hard wood…but the idea of spending thousands of dollars to refinish is not appealing.
So I stick with my happiness story.
If you are going to live in the house a long time…
I believe installing real wood is worth the $!</p>
<p>I have hardwood throughout my downstairs and I like it except in the kitchen, where I would really prefer tile (the hardwood didn’t have enough poly in the finish, and now has to be redone after only 9 years). But I would not tile an entire house up north–tile is very, very cold unless you have radiant heat.</p>
<p>We have oak parquet floors which we had refinished about 8 years ago. We have some superficial grooves thanks to the dog and cat, but not very noticeable. Go with a matte finish of poly, at least 3 coats.</p>
<p>We have tan oak throughout the entire house, including the kitchen. One of the main traffic areas is a cross hatch pattern where there are 4 tiles laid in between wood planks running at a diagonal/perpendicular pattern. This is the closest I could find to what we have.</p>
<p>The tile is about 1/8 of an inch higher than the wood and thus takes the brunt of the beating. It worked as a nice transition between areas. The kitchen itself is plain hardwood. I don’t like the hardness of tile, nor the echo/noise effect since ours is a very open floor plan.</p>
<p>Are the glossier finishes a terrible idea? That was what I really loved and wanted, but maybe I should reconsider that. I’ve heard that the lighter woods can mask some scratches better than darker woods, and I do like the lighter woods, but I don’t know much about the different finishes. </p>
<p>I figure a scratch here and there are just to be expected, but my mom’s friend says she has to sand and totally refinish her floors every year. That sounds INSANE.</p>
<p>Wood that is already finished before it gets installed can only be refinished a couple of times total. The advantage to manufactured wood is that it is structurally stronger and more resistant to moisture that may form under your house, etc. Wood that is finished after being installed looks “more natural”. I personally like the flatter or satin finishes over the gloss finishes of wood floors that can be finished in place.</p>
<p>Where I live, it’s really popular to have “distressed” wood floors. They are hand scraped, then stained and sealed. They look awesome, and I really think impervious to animals, at least for years and years.</p>
<p>We didn’t do the hand scraped/distressed floors and were sorry. But we are the type to throw a ball in the house for a dog to chase. BAD us, I know. :o</p>
<p>No disrespect intended, but yes, that is insane. We have never sanded/refinished our wood floors in 14 years, and they have a few scratches, but not too many. We asked our realtor if we needed to do that prior to listing our house and she said not to bother. That makes me think your friend is…extreme.</p>
<p>She very well could be, so I am glad I asked around! She does have two wild dogs and I have no idea what kind of wood her floors are made of or what amount of scratches she deems acceptable. I haven’t been to her home in years. I think expecting the floors to look picture perfect kind of defeats the purpose of having the wood. I just don’t want people to look at it right away and think I obviously must not take good care of my home because my floors look like hell. So it sounds like real wood could be an option depending on what selections we make in terms of wood type and finish, but we should still consider all the options. Just need to get into the house and figure out what will look best with the kitchen.</p>
<p>We were supposed to be closing tomorrow, but we were notified today that the sellers cant be out for another two weeks, so there’s quite a bit of time left now. I think our first step will be to install the rescessed lighting in the living room in question, then paint, then floors. So we have lots of time to think. Thankfully nothing NEEDS to be done right away, and the living room is the only part of the house we need to touch.</p>
<p>When you install flooring, you most likely will prefer to rip out the baseboards and install taller, nicer baseboards rather than install shoe molding over the baseboards. You have to touch up the painted areas where the top of the baseboards meet the wall because there will be dings left by the floor installers.</p>
<p>There is also caulking that will likely be showing. You may want to just reinstall baseboard that is 1/2 " higher than before. In many instances, this will cover any old caulking or wall dings.</p>
<p>On another note, order MORE wood than you actually need to complete the job by 6 to 10 percent. This will give you a little extra for those unexpected repairs or so you can pick and choose which boards go down.</p>
<p>Tell me more about baseboards and molding… this issue was not on my radar. What is shoe molding? I tried to google it and didn’t get it. Can floors be installed without destroying the existing molding? I hadn’t thought of that but I would assume it would be in the way. Are we talking about replacing the baseboards vs covering up damage to the wall ABOVE the molding from the floor installation? Am I to expect damage that can’t be repaired and must be covered up? Pretend I have no idea what I am talking about, because I don’t… ;)</p>
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