looking for flooring recommendations

[chiver78]

I'm planning a renovation either later this year or early next, and am in need of some recommendations. I'd like to do some sort of wood flooring, but can't do straightforward nail-in hardwood flooring because I am on a concrete slab foundation/no basement.

the area I'm looking to cover is my open-floor plan living area. this is kitchen, LR, DR, and front hallway. there is a threshold to the tiled bathroom on this floor, I will not be changing that. the entryway and the space in front of the fireplace have tile, which I'd like to keep for practical reasons (winter weather-soaked wood flooring is not appealing to me ), and it's about 1/4" thick. I'm hoping to keep all the flooring at the same elevation. I'm looking for something a bit nicer than cheap-looking Pergo. you know - the one that has "floor boards" drawn on a sticker that covers whatever size pieces, and when it wears, it peels around the edges. yeah....yuck.

I intend to do this work myself, and have access to professional-quality tools. anyone have a recommendation? I'm starting to do some early research on the materials for the whole project, and I'm at a loss on the flooring. thanks in advance!

[Gardening Grandma]

Have you considered cork? My son put cork in his entry way both for looks and durability and it looks great even after several years of use and abuse....

You can google cork floors images and see what a wide variety of looks there are.....

[2kids10horses]

If you are trying to stay at about 1/4 inch, you can do engineered wood. Usually, it's a glue down job on concrete. I did the whole ground floor of one of the houses I flipped last year. I did it myself with the help of my day laborer.

We purchased the wood and glue at Lumber Liquators.

The glue is really, really, messy. I won't try doing another one of those myself. It came out ok, but it's a pain to work with.

One option you might try is Elastilon. It's rather expensive, but it allows you to float a floor on concrete. Lumber Liquators sells it. Look under the "underlayment" area on their web site. The cool thing about it is it has no VOC (no smell like glue) and you can use solid flooring rather than having to use engineered wood.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

We just had linoleum installed in our kitten room in the corkboard design, and we couldn't be happier. They now have designs that look like wood floors, too .... but that doesn't sound like what you are looking for.

[qofcc]

have you thought about just doing ceramic tile to coordinate with your other tile and put an area run in the living room?

Or what about wood parquet?

[Deleted]

We had bamboo installed in our kitchen and master bathroom about 5 years ago and we love it. It's harder than maple (although, like any wood, it will scratch) and because bamboo is pretty much a weed, it's far more sustainable than hardwoods from forests. We used bamboohardwoods.com; they're based in Seattle but they ship.

[debtheaven]

I second qofcc's suggestions about ceramic tile. I've been in my house for nearly 30 years now. Originally everything but the kitchen was carpeted. We have since replaced all the carpet (except in the two masters) with tile downstairs (LR, DR, 1/2 bathroom) and wood upstairs (landing, three bedrooms).

We also replaced the wooden flooring in the basement with tile after flooding two years ago.

I have a big, eat-in kitchen and there are always accidents involving water. I would be afraid that you'd have a flood in the kitchen at some point and need to replace the wooden flooring (this said our washing machine is in the kitchen).

[chiver78]

wow, thanks for the answers!

I haven't really considered much yet, like I said it's still in the "what do I want to do?" phase of planning.

I've liked bamboo flooring I've seen, but have always thought that's a "nail down" type of material. is it not?

I'm not sure how I feel about ceramic tile everywhere. I know it's common in Florida, and other warm places, but it's not too common in New England. the tile that's already in place is 18x18" white tiles, like you'd see in Florida. I'm not too sure it fits the decor. as far as water disasters, the actual floor space in my kitchen is probably 3x3'. it's really tiny, which is why I'll be opening it up with the renovation. it's currently a linoleum floor, with the rest of the non-tile space as wall-to-wall carpeting.

I've only seen cork flooring in industrial/office spaces. a couple of my company's buildings have spaces with cork, and it's pretty nice. I'll have to check that out!

[Deleted]

Apr 3, 2011 18:02:45 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

I've liked bamboo flooring I've seen, but have always thought that's a "nail down" type of material. is it not?

Yeah, I checked with DH and he said you'd have to put down a layer of plywood first, maybe even a layer of felt under the plywood.

I like the idea of cork, though. DSS an dhis wife had a section of that in their kitchen and liked it.

[Deleted]

We used engineered wood over slab in two bedrooms in our AZ house. It looks great but you must have very even slabs to do the glue down option. AZ is notorious for our "expansive soils". Our installers had to spend a full day grinding the slabs to meet the specs. Another home improvement that I'm glad that we had done professionally!

I would never use wood in kitchens or bathrooms or any area that gets a lot of water. Even entryways can be a problem over a long period of time (15-20 years).

I wouldn't install bamboo in wet areas or areas that get a lot of temperature fluctuation either. The floors on the 4th floor of this house that we are renting are a mess. I think they are between 10-15 years old. My M-I-L installed bamboo in her living room and her dogs have scratched the hell out of them due to their playing.

Cork sounds interesting. Do post what you find out. I'm curious how they hold up in a kitchen area.

Finally, if you're doing a big area, don't be afraid to break it up into a couple of pieces. About 10 years ago we did a dining room/breakfast room extension of 500 sq.ft. in our SF Bay Area house. We decided to replace the existing 20 year old vinyl kitchen flooring at the same time so a total of about 600 sq.ft. of new flooring. We knew we wanted to install wooden floor with a feature strip in the formal dining room but no wood in the kitchen. So we used cheap $1.00 sq.ft. tile from Home Depot to tile both the kitchen and the breakfast room areas. My husband came up with a clever idea to insert 2.5" hand painted Italian deco tiles about a foot in from the edge of the cheap tiles so the tile flooring complements the feature strip idea in the wood floor. The floors are now 10 years old and still look great despite being a rental for 8 years!

[qofcc]

I'm not sure how I feel about ceramic tile everywhere. I know it's common in Florida, and other warm places, but it's not too common in New England. the tile that's already in place is 18x18" white tiles, like you'd see in Florida

I agree that an entire floor of light colored tiles would look too tropical, but a black & white retro look or something that looks like slate or another local stone would be appropriate for New England.

[The J]

Apr 4, 2011 7:42:47 GMT -5 qofcc said:

I'm not sure how I feel about ceramic tile everywhere. I know it's common in Florida, and other warm places, but it's not too common in New England. the tile that's already in place is 18x18" white tiles, like you'd see in Florida

I agree that an entire floor of light colored tiles would look too tropical, but a black & white retro look or something that looks like slate or another local stone would be appropriate for New England.

Whole floor tile is not a good idea in New England -- tile gets cold. It's fine for appropriate rooms -- kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, entryway/foyer, etc..., but not for the general living spaces.

[bean29]

Chiver,

When we built our house DH wanted to do tile in the dining room. We ended up doing hardwood, but I walked through a neighbor's house that had tile in the dining room, entryway, kitchen etc. and I thought it showed real well. I wasn't sure if buyers would like it but it sold right away. ( We are in Midwest so tile throughout the house is not common here either).

I am looking for vinyl for my basement for a storage area that is 20x7. They had some special order vinyl wood look stuff that goes down in strips. I thought it cost almost as much as wood though. I want an engineered wood in the family room section but DH is insisting on tile. We once had Pergo in the kitchen of a house we owned and two weeks before closing our dishwasher leaked and damaged the floor. We could not get matching replacement planks so we ended up replacing the whole kitchen section.

I have a flooring question too, since you started this thread already I would like to piggy back on it rather that start a new thread with a very similar topic.

Because the room DH is finishing is virtually a combination storage/laundry/exercise room and we want it done by Easter we decided to put down a vinyl tile floor.

When I went to Lowes/Home depot to look at vinyl tiles they have vinyl tile that is "groutable". It really looks like ceramic tile. In fact two of the tiles I brought home look exactly like the ceramic in my laundry and kitchen.

DH was concerned about durability after he grouts it. ie. if the puts the self stick tile down, then lays in the grout what is the likelihood that the self stick tile might lift up? He seemed to think it would be much more of a problem that non-grouted vinyl tiles.

Does anyone have any experience with this type of tile?

[qofcc]

Whole floor tile is not a good idea in New England -- tile gets cold. It's fine for appropriate rooms -- kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, entryway/foyer, etc..., but not for the general living spaces.

It depends on how you heat your house and how warm you keep it. Passive solar houses recommend tile throughout because it stores radiant heat well, so if you have radiators or a wood stove or lots of south facing windows, it's a good idea. If you use forced air heat, it's not such a good idea.

We have friends with stained & sealed concrete floors (in western NY) on the finished lower level of their house. They use radiant heat (not in the floor, but in the ceiling above it heating the main floor) and keep the temperature around 68-70 deg and we walk around on that nice toasty floor with just our socks on.

[TD2K]

You can also get underfloor heating installed with tile floor.

[qofcc]

DH was concerned about durability after he grouts it. ie. if the puts the self stick tile down, then lays in the grout what is the likelihood that the self stick tile might lift up? He seemed to think it would be much more of a problem that non-grouted vinyl tiles.

If you're going to go through the trouble to grout it, you'd be better off installing real ceramic tile. If you find a bargain or discontinued pattern, the cost shouldn't be that much more.

I put down vinyl tile in our finished basement/laundry/exercise room. We previously had just a concrete floor. We have forced air heat downstairs and the vinyl was much warmer under foot than the concrete, it also decreased the humidity significantly. Depending on how insulated your basement slab is, grouted vinyl might end up being the worst of both worlds. The grout will breathe and change temperature with the slab below and I would be worried about condensation which would lift the tiles.

[chiver78]

hmm...were I building from scratch and using radiant heat, that would be one thing. I'm not, though. so far, I like the cork flooring idea. I found a company, DuroDesign that has a pretty good selection. obviously, I want to take a look at things in person as well.

as far as splitting up the overall area, I'm not sure I like that idea for my space. it's kind of an odd layout, and the point of opening up the wall is to flow as one space. if I can draw it out to scale, I'll attach a pic somewhere on this thread. part of the problem is that my furniture is a little too big for the space (but I like the pieces) and things overlap. when I have a full dining room table, one of the overstuffed chairs ends up getting moved. I feel like if I split the areas, it would look weird. I hear ya though, it's a great idea for other spaces.

[chiver78]

bean, no worries about piggybacking. I might learn something from your questions too.

I'm with qofcc, if you're going to grout, you may as well just get regular tile. when I re-did my full bath, we added tile to the tub area. I think I paid $.28/tile for 4x4" white tiles at Lowe's. obviously, you'd want something different for flooring, but it seemed like pretty reasonable pricing.

[RoadToRiches]

I know when I am ready to do flooring at my place, which I really need, I will be getting bamboo floors. Cheap, durable and they look awesome.

[bean29]

The reason I am thinking about the vinyl tiles is b/c cutting the tiles will take much more time than what we want to spend. If you use vinyl, you can cut them with a exacto knife.

DH knows how to cut the tile, he did the upstairs...

I also looked at the self stick vinyl...have been told by others that it works fairly well. but DH was concerned about some irregular sections that he would have to cut around and the fact that the vinyl would come in a 12 foot width and our room is 7 feet wide so there would be a good amount of waste.

I guess we may stick with vinyl tiles and not grout them. We had vinyl tile in our basement in our first house and had no issues with it. The real visible areas will get regular tile. vinyl tile is not really cheaper than ceramic tile it is just less work.

[thyme4change]

Whole floor tile is not a good idea in New England -- tile gets cold. It's fine for appropriate rooms -- kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, entryway/foyer, etc..., but not for the general living spaces.

I live in Arizona, and it is not uncommon to see whole-house tile jobs. I'm not crazy about them. It is hard to have that warm, homey feeling on such a cold hard surface. I can't imagine how horrible it would be where it is cold, snowy, rainy, etc. It sounds slippery and uncomfortable.

Go with the engineered hardwood.