Stupid carpet rant...

[Deleted]

Duct Tape or do the Bamboo flooring. Only two choices here & you better hope that doggie doesn't like the flavor of duct tape!!

[qofcc]

Since you mentioned that you have parquet, carpet and tile (tile from the kitchen I presume) all visible at the same time, I think going with parquet in the living room (with or without a nice area rug) would be the most conservative choice. Do it once and it's done and will look good enough when you go to sell the house. Install cheap carpet and you're going to be going through this again within 5 years, especially with pets.

I wouldn't go with the bamboo/parquet mix, I think that would look weird. My 2nd choice would be traditional narrow planks in one of the tones in the parquet. Your floor shouldn't match your cabinets, it should coordinate with them, but transition strips in the same wood as the cabinets could look nice.

[Deleted]

I think if money is a consideration then you should definitely replace the carpet with parquet flooring. If you have the money then tear out the parquet and carpet and get what you want. I would verify that bamboo can hold up to dog claws before I used it though. You don't want to spend a ton of money and then have little marks all over your floor from your dog's claws!

Dogs + Carpet=BAD. My little dog tore up a spot of berber carpet in my loft. We had it patched because we had an extra piece. It looks like crap. Someday we'll have to replace it but first we have to replace the family room carpet that was stained with dog pee when our dog sitters didn't let our dogs out when we were on vacation.

As long as you have a dog or kids I would go with wood floors. You'll just need to replace the carpet over and over again.

[midjd]

Dark, we have way too many rolls of that hideous beige carpet in our basement (left over from the rebuild in 2010) - if you want a patch, lemme know and I will be ECSTATIC to send you as much as you want.

[thyme4change]

ruh-roh, the YM consensous says you must buy parquet.

[deantrip]

Nope, with Mid offering the free approach you must go that route and put in more ugly beige landlord carpet or you will be eating the dog's food in retirement! ( I hear it it tastier than cat food, but who knows?)

[Deleted]

I think you get a more luxurious coat with dog food.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Is this your "forever" house or are you planning to sell it in about 10 years when the kids are grown and gone?

First, I absolutely loathe the term forever house. Almost nobody has a forever house. Some people have houses they really love, but if the area turns into a gang infested pit, all the local jobs dry up, or something medical happens where you need to move into an assisted living facility, there's hardly anyone that will be like, "Eff that, this is my forever house and I'm staying dammit!" Granted, there are a few wackadoodles in every bunch, but for the most part, people live somewhere as long as it meets their needs and leave when it no longer does.

Secondly, we both like our pile of sticks and drywall, but we're not like determined to stay in it until they haul us out in body bags. We have talked about moving after the kids are out of the house, but it's a long way off and we haven't engraved any plans in stone, you know what I'm saying?

[skubikky]

May 17, 2012 17:11:58 GMT -5 @debthaven2 said:

Where does it say the floors have to match?

Floors don't HAVE to match, but in an open-plan space, it is generally more harmonious when you have the same flooring.

"harmonious"....WTF .....whaddy been doin', watching HGTV?

[Sum Dum Gai]

Floors don't HAVE to match, but in an open-plan space, it is generally more harmonious when you have the same flooring.

I really should take a picture of the entry way area right inside our door. There's a rectangular patch of tile floor maybe 8' long and 6' wide. To the right of that is the living room area, which has the landlord carpet, and straight back towards the kitchen/dining room and to the left which goes back towards the bedrooms you have the parquet floors. So it's like a big open great room type floor plan, but you have three different types of flooring all in one open area.

[Wisconsin Beth]

May 17, 2012 17:11:52 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

If you use your savings to redo the floors do you have a plan on how you will replace the money in the long run?

Same plan I always have; get up everyday and go to work while trying to spend less than I make.

And then, TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!

[Wisconsin Beth]

May 17, 2012 18:49:35 GMT -5 Peace Of Mind said:

Dark, I'd keep the parquet for now too and just buy a great floor rug if you don't love it. It's not my taste either, but with your dog it's probably the best idea until you can do what you really want.

Your dog's toenails are going to scratch the hell out of the wood floors you know.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Your dog's toenails are going to scratch the hell out of the wood floors you know.

Eh... the parquet seems to be holding up just fine. She eats carpet, apparently, so what else would we do? Tile the whole house?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Your dog's toenails are going to scratch the hell out of the wood floors you know.

We got our hardwood restored and it's not that bad. We have a lab and an Aussie mix. The heaviest traffic area between the kitchen and bedroom is showing some damage but the floors are still miles ahead of where they were when we had carpet.

We'll happily take having to do some touching up sooner rather than later over the nastiness of having carpeting the living room with pets.

It's so much easier to clean our floors now. I don't want to consider what might have been trapped in that carpet

[Wisconsin Beth]

May 18, 2012 13:17:48 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Your dog's toenails are going to scratch the hell out of the wood floors you know.

Eh... the parquet seems to be holding up just fine. She eats carpet, apparently, so what else would we do? Tile the whole house?

No, I'm just saying that whatever you do with your floor, expect to do it again once you're done with pets. Our hardwood floors were in decent condition when I ripped up the carpet 5-6 years ago. After 3 years of dogs (one of whom wouldn't walk on the hardwood floors) they're much more beat up than expected.

and did you guys ever find your charger or whatever it was that went AWOL to show us current dog pictures?

[Sum Dum Gai]

I thought I already posted new dog pictures a while ago?

[Wisconsin Beth]

May 18, 2012 13:32:52 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

I thought I already posted new dog pictures a while ago?

I never saw them. Sorry. Do you know what thread they were on?

[zibazinski]

Dark, not that you want to do this, but I am between tenants so I am taking out all the old vinyl and carpet and putting in vinyl wood looking plank flooring. Because it is pet, child, tenant friendly and also because it will make the rooms look that much bigger when it is all one color/floor. It is darker than the kitchen cabinets. But if you go to wood floor make sure it is a hand scraped floor not a shiny smooth floor. With a dog and kids and even dropping a utensil can damage your floor. In one that already looks distressed, you cannot tell. You could also buy all the wood you need/want now but not install it all. Installation is spendy so you could do it as you have the money but you would have the same flooring.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I never saw them. Sorry. Do you know what thread they were on?

No clue. I'll put some on a thread here this weekend.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Yay! Thank you for feeding my puppy/lab fix!

[qofcc]

Installation is spendy so you could do it as you have the money but you would have the same flooring.

I hope you're planning to install it yourself to save money. Laying pre-finished flooring is not rocket science. I've installed wood flooring myself. My grandmother installed the wood floor in her upstairs when she was a housewife in the 50's.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I hope you're planning to install it yourself to save money.

We are. That's one of the thing they always do on the those home shows on TV that never comes out looking jacked up. Depending on how it goes, I might even tackle the bathroom tile whenever we get around to replacing the old lady vinyl that's in there now.

[thyme4change]

Tile is a great project. Easy and makes a huge impact.

[Angel!]

Interesting because tile & flooring are the 2 DIY projects that terrify me. I think it is because of the potential cost if my work is so shoddy that a redo is required.

Yet I can do all the electrical wiring to finish the basement without an issue

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

When you rip up the carpeting, will you be saving it for doggie chew toys?

[2kids10horses]

I lay bathroom tile, slate, and hardwood floors. Hard work? yes. Rocket science? No. Thresholds are the trickiest parts of the job. The Dremmel "Multi-Max" tool is perfect for cutting the door jams so you can slide the tile or wood piece under so it looks that it was always installed that way.

Dark: Probably the easiest thing would be to install the parquet for now. If later you want to install other hardwood floor, you can rip all of it up and start over. And you can rip up the tile in the extrance, too. (I bet that the house originally did not have the parquet, just the tile and carpet, and an owner installed the parquet.)

[Deleted]

Another vote for the Parquet.

You do not want bamboo with the dogs. MIL installed bamboo and her dogs have scratched it up pretty bad.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Bet we already want to replace the parquet in the rest of the house. Adding more seems like a waste.

Although we're leaning that way for now. Matching parquet in the living room, and then refinish the whole floor. We're still undecided on the tile entry. The tiles themselves are the generic six inch square white tiles (which are boring, but not horrible), with kind of thick grout lines, and they used this hideous brown grout. We have the same thing on our counter tops in the kitchen.

[qofcc]

For the cost of replacing that little bit of tile in front of the door, it hardly seems worth keeping it. Have you priced out how much it would be to rip everything out and put in what you want vs. just do the living room. What is the sf of the LR vs the sf of the rest of the flooring?

[Sum Dum Gai]

What is the sf of the LR vs the sf of the rest of the flooring?

The living room section that's carpeted is probably about 400 sf. The total area that's got parquet now... I'd guess about 1000 sf. We need to measure everything.

For the cost of replacing that little bit of tile in front of the door, it hardly seems worth keeping it.

Yeah, but it's right inside the front door so it gets a lot of traffic. The most worn section on the wood floor now is right inside the back door. If we do take out the tile we need to get some rugs in the high traffic areas.