What's Best?
I have removed the carpet from the living room and vinyl flooring from the bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. The carpet in the hall and bed rooms are still in good shape.
I have finished wood beams in the ceiling and finished wood door caseings and molding in the living room.
My question is do I replace with what it had or do I change it to hardwood floors (laminate flooring)?
To replace what I have plus labor would cost $1500.00.
To replace with hardwood with me doing the labor about $1700.00.
Does hardwood increase the purchase cost compaired to carpet and vinyl?
The carpet has a 25 year transferable warranty plus a 10 year labor warranty.
Thanks for your input in advance.
Marty
Is this an o/o, rental or sale property...CWal
Hard wood over carpet is a no brainer. In 9 out of 10 circumstances it will be more desireable by a long shot.
A 25 year warranty on carpet means nothing. They might as well make it 1000 years. 25 years and 1000 are the same. 25 year old carpeting would look like the inside of somebodies butt and it still couldn't be replaced under the warranty. Have you ever looked at a house with carpet in it from the 70's? Would you keep it even if it was in perfect condition? In 25 years we will probably be back around to everybody loving orange shag again and gold veined 12x12 inch mirrored walls again.
LOL....
Depending if it is a low income home and your plans for it I would agree with REHAB..
The-Rehabinator,
Thanks for the laugh! I completely agree with you, but I chuckled at your post!
hardwood. hands-down.
I use cheap carpet in my rentals, but when it comes time to sell, they will have hardwood/laminate floors.
BTW, just my humble opinion, but I think in 10-20 years, we will hate the laminate floors as much as we do the shag carpets now. My reason is that they chip and don't really hold up forever. Heaven forbid those floors get wet, they're basically compressed particle board. Just no substitute for the real thing. IMHO.
ladygray, actually I'm going to disagree with you, I believe you are going to continue to see laminate flooring continue the trend of eating up market share in the flooring market. Traditional hard wood holds less and less value as laminate gets better and better. The price difference and ease of installation are only going to help make hardwood less appealing to all but the highest end homeowners as laminate continues to get better and better.
Thanks for the replies.
The home is going to be sold. not a rental.
I have press board subflooring now. The problem is the floor has bubbled everywhere someone has spilled a drink. The reason is they had carpet on the floor letting liquid get to the flooring.
Do I need to put 1/2 inch plywood ontop of this before installing hardwood flooring? or a floor leveling putty.
Marty
You might want to look at laminate instead of hardwood, it is more forgiving when it comes to inferior substrates. However, most still require no more than 3/8 of an inch out of level over a 10 foot distance. It might be easier to cut out individual sections and replace if they are just a few.
I would go with a foam padding before i went with the self leveling pour on substance. That stuff i dont remember the name is very expensive for a rehab unless your talking about a 250k home I would not mess with it.
Also with the flooring bubbled are you talking more money to fix the subfloor or is that 1700 including that? I would say if you have to fix the subfloor before you lay a laminate and its not included in your 1700 dollar cost then just go with carpet. I have the laminate in my home and I am pleased with it. I just wish I had spent more time on the subfloor because you can feel the bumps and ridges under it in some spots.
I hate that laminate flooring junk they sell at Lowes and Home Depot. The main reason beieng is that it's called a "floating floor" and it really does float. When you walk over it, it feels cheap.. not solid. You can feel areas of flexation under your feet.
I would never deliberately install this product in a rental, resale or my own home but I am rehabbing a property right now that already has it in the Living Room so I'm keeping it.
It's basically an engineered wood product (pressed particle board/glue) with a thin laminate covering kind of like formica. On the plus side, the surface is very durable, hard to scratch or gouge and will hold up very well to renter abuse. I think these laminate floors look cheap compared to real wood and lack warmth, character and structural integrity. But another plus is they go in easy so the rip out easy if you ever want to do away with them in the future.
Here is a little trick you may or may not be interested in. Laminate flooring sells all kinds of mouldings like T-bar where you transition from one flooring type to another and quarter round to cover the gaps where the flooring meets the baseoards. Dont use the Quarter Round crap. I can't believe they sell something so cheap and poorly made. It's a similar particle board covered by a 2-3mil thick woodgrained shelving paper. It's not very rigid so it will buckle a bit over time and make the installation look even worse.
For the area where the flooring meets the baseboard, I recommend a paint grade pine cove moulding (find the size and style that suits you), do a quality install with mitresaw and nailgun, then paint the baseboard and cove moulding all the same color so it looks like it's not an add-on but part of the origional baseboard.
The laminate will now look like it was professionally installed when the room was built and not some poorly done aftermarket add-on. The baseboards will extrude out over the flooring about 1/2" but it looks very nice like this... a little beefier... almost like crown moulding.
Thanks everyone,
I started installing the floor today. It is going a lot faster then i thought it would. It is easy and looks good.
I decided to put a 1/4 in overlay over the old bubbled floor. The only room I had to do cost $100.00 more. But it looks better now.
I used molding and painted it the same color as the wall. not 1/4 round. looks good.
Again thanks for the replys,
Marty