Hardwood floors?

[DeNguyen]

So I want to convert my livingroom area from ceramic tile to hardwood floor. I haven't really done any research yet, but I just wanted to see if anyone on here can give me a few pointers to get me started.

What types of wood are good/bad? Any particular brands? Hows the maintenance?

I've also been hearing about people using Bamboo? Any thoughts on that?

[matteni]

Originally posted by DeNguyen
So I want to convert my livingroom area from ceramic tile to hardwood floor. I haven't really done any research yet, but I just wanted to see if anyone on here can give me a few pointers to get me started.

What types of wood are good/bad? Any particular brands? Hows the maintenance?

I've also been hearing about people using Bamboo? Any thoughts on that?

We used Pergo because of the look, durability, and cost. I did like the look and durability of Bamboo and would definitely consider it in the future because:

- it is renewable
- it is durable
- it can be made to look like everything

and best of all

- it is highly resistant to water damage!

The last one should be a big selling point. It does not expand the way that Pergo and real wood do - even when soaked. You don't know how many times a child has a "FUN" bath, a refrigerator leaks, or water is left standing and unnoticed on the floor. This completely wrecks havoc on Pergo and it has to be dried for several weeks to return to "almost normal". With wood - the damage can be permanent.

With bamboo - no damage - no problem - and may even protect the basement and sub flooring! If you haven't checked it out - you really should.

[JPS Europa]

We have oak floors in most rooms of the house. Area rugs are a good idea to help protect the finish and weekly cleaning is a must to insure decent intervals between refinishing. In the kitchen which is very heavy traffic (5 people in the house), we have to refinish every three years. In the living room it is every five.

[ss_md]

After looking at a variety of flooring products and researching, the following items are things I found that needs to be considered before buying:
1. Do you want real wood or a manufactured product.
2. Do you want an exotic wood or a "plain vanilla" wood. There is wide variety of real woods available.
3. Is the sub-floor concrete or wood. (makes a difference on the installation and thickness of real wood products).
4. Real wood requires more care and maintenence.
5. How solid do you want the finihsed floor to feel; manuf. flooring has a tendancy to feel soft because it sits on foam and a majority of real wood products are typically glued or nailed to the sub-floor.
6. If real wood has minor damaged it can be sanded (if the damage is not too deep).
7. If manuf. flooring is damaged it generally needs to be replaced.
8. Are you doing DIY or hiring an installer?
9. How much money do you want to spend?
10. Look at all of the different types of wood available. Look for flooring vendors in your area as your typical home improvement store only carries a limited selection. Try Lumber Liquidators they have a very good selection and decent pricing.

Standard disclaimer applies.

[hlweyl]

lumberliquidators.com has some pretty decent prices. We just installed harwood flooring in our kitchen (about 15 x 15). We found a slightly better price in a local warehouse.

We chose traditional 3/4 inch tongue and groove oak. The prefinished floors are VERY durable, I remember reading they use a 7 coat finish in the factory and some metal's are applied in the finish. Bruce flooring is priced reasonable also. We chose the 3/4 inch because it can be sanded and refinished multiple times over the life of the floor whereas some of the laminate flooring cannot. It's a good option if you plan on staying at that house for years to come. It took my wife and I 2.5 days to strip the vinyl and lay all of the flooring.

Good luck

[NSX 3.0]

We have Oak in our House and so far they are wearing well even with five Newfoundlands. Just remember the finish is the most important part we had four coats of a industrial type clear finish put down on it. BTW here is my Brother in laws company he started outstanding work they do a few of the border pictures are taken from there previous homes. Also check out the FAQs in there website that might help you out a bit.



http://www.oshkoshfloors.com/

[Dtrigg]

We recently installed bamboo in the kitchen, dining room and living room. It looks fantastic. The previous post offer good advice. Make sure you answer those questions. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the style of your home. Our home is very contempary, so bamboo worked well.

Also, check if you need to install a "floating" floor. Early installations of bamboo were glued to the existing floor and that proved to be a problem. Our installation was a floating one.

[rowr]

Denny...

I'd have to agree with Nick about the bamboo flooring. We just moved into a new place and chose bamboo over the traditional maple, oak, etc. Pretty tough stuff, and looks good, too.

We're out in Brentwood and you're welcome to take a look at it for any ideas, if you'd like.

Still on that slippery slope of NSX mods?

Later,
Charles

[xsn]

Can one of you guys with bamboo flooring post a picture? I'd like to see how it looks in real life -- as opposed to a brochure. Thanks!

[Kinan]

I have real wood flooring and found that it faded from the sun beating down on it after a few years. I had throw rugs in the same place for a while and could see where the sun had faded the floors from where the rugs had covered them. Don't know if the laminates have this problem.
I ended up installing some UV resistant film over the windows and then found that flowering plants no longer flowered after the UV film but at least the floor stopped getting darker.

[votrix]

Wow. . .I must admit, this forum is a rather knowledgeable group. I'm also in the process of picking out the type of flooring that I want for my place and had the same questions. I never thought about asking the NSX guys.

Thanks for asking Denny. . .hahaha

[NSX-Stalker]

Couple of questions for bamboo floor owners.

We have 3 Jack Russel Terriors that are quite active. Will their toe nails scratch the finish? Also, if one of the has an "accident" of the liquid variety and we don't catch it right away will that damage the floor?

Thanks

NSX-Stalker

[SpeedDemon]

Just had to make a quick post to say "awesome!". Never would have expected to see a message thread about hardwood floors on a car site, and with great info no less .

We're about to kick off shopping for hardwood floors, so all this info is good to have.

We've been leaning heavily towards maple (typically, "honey maple" as far as color) as we like the look/reduced graininess without being "washed out", plus it's a durable wood. The wear characteristics of bamboo sound awesome, but the pictures we've seen so far have tended to have a similar visual look to laminates and maybe even have too little grain. We'll have to get into some showrooms to get a better idea of how everything looks in person, so far most of the browsing has been web/pictures only.

Best,
Marc

[NSX 3.0]

Originally posted by NSX-Stalker
Couple of questions for bamboo floor owners.

We have 3 Jack Russel Terriors that are quite active. Will their toe nails scratch the finish? Also, if one of the has an "accident" of the liquid variety and we don't catch it right away will that damage the floor?

Thanks

NSX-Stalker

We had a accident or two when our Pups were in the house and did nothing to the floor finish etc. I think I'm more messy than they are I dropped eveything possible on the floor and it still looks great. BTW this is the best floor cleaner around just remember the name has a " X " in it.

[ftc3]

In our old house, our Jack Russell pup decided she was going to dig in the hard wood floor. [She also dug a hole in the wall and chewed the leg off our office chair.] They scratched and were a pain the rear to keep up. Thank goodness she grew out of it.

In the new house, we went with Pergo. One of the movers draged the fridge across the floor. Not one mark! The dog runs and slides all the time. Keep up is very easy too. Grab It's and Murphy's Oil Soap does the job.

[VampNSX]

Originally posted by matteni
We used Pergo because of the look, durability, and cost. I did like the look and durability of Bamboo and would definitely consider it in the future because:

- it is renewable
- it is durable
- it can be made to look like everything

and best of all

- it is highly resistant to water damage!

The last one should be a big selling point. It does not expand the way that Pergo and real wood do - even when soaked. You don't know how many times a child has a "FUN" bath, a refrigerator leaks, or water is left standing and unnoticed on the floor. This completely wrecks havoc on Pergo and it has to be dried for several weeks to return to "almost normal". With wood - the damage can be permanent.

With bamboo - no damage - no problem - and may even protect the basement and sub flooring! If you haven't checked it out - you really should.

I agree

I just did my floor with Pergo it look great and was 1/3 the cost of wood. In the new house I am buying I will get tile. It will look more "OLD" with tile. The funny thing is that the new house is going to be new as in never bin lived in befor and I am going to make it look old looking.

but tile is more money.


But just use Pergo it the best bang for your buck.

[matteni]

I have pergo through the house and I do like it.

It is not as industructable as I hoped (I did recently scratch it dragging the fridge across it but had done so 10 times before with no problem). It is EXTREMELY sensitive to water. This means if you leave so much as a couple ice cubes worth of water it will soak it up like a sponge and the boards will buckle. Most of the time they do go back down but it takes many weeks and they are extremely sensitive to damage when in the buckled mode.

Would I do it again - yes. Would I do it in the kitchen (sink, dishwasher, fidge) - no. Would I do it in the bathrooms (3 kids in tub have a water fight every night) - no.

Also - we had some more severe flooding recently. Basically our GE fridge had a "pinhole leak". The Korean inlet valve is glued together and was seaping through the glue. The worst design I ever saw. First we thougtht the kids had spilled water at night and we didn't catch it. Ran a paper tower under the fridge - nothing. Moved the fridge the first time - nothing. Checked everywhere! We then realized that the floor was absorbing the water at the same rate it dripped and the damage (even after caught) spread like a virus for a week. We are waiting the months before it goes down to see if we will have to replace all the kitchen flooring (with tile or the like this time).

The installing company wont even estimate a repair as they (on ours) interlocked and glued them down and it is a major nightmare to fix isolated damage (often the same amount as starting over for the room + the cost of getting the old stuff out).

All things to consider - FYI.