Natwerk Designs

What type of flooring is popular but not too expensive?

We have pets and want something low maintenance but also with the thought of selling in a couple years. We have a LARGE family room with linoleum now and carpeting in the bedrooms & living room. Our country kitchen is real oak which we plan to keep and it meets up with the family room on one end and is visible to the carpeted hall way on the other end. The family room is connected only to the kitchen. We've thought about doing the installation ourselves if it's not carpeting, to save on $ but not sure how difficult it would be.

Public Comments

1. bamboo
2. If you cannot afford to do the rooms in oak to match the existing, why not do only 1 room at a time? As you already know, a solid wood floor is beautiful, takes abuse and cleans up nicely. Not even mentioning the impact on a home's sale potential. Another idea is to go with laminates which are easy to install (also called a "floating floor"as it is not nailed or glued) and are available in a variety of shades and finishes and inexpensive compared to the purchase and installation of a true oak floor.
3. you can get pretty cheap laminate flooring...some of it looks cheap though...watch for sales, it is always going on sale
4. I agree Bamboo flooring sells at home depot for .99 cents a square foot it is hard wood and very resistant to pets and scratched installation is not difficult just need to be precise and very very organized as the process involves many slow and small steps that if you try to skip will make a mess at the end go slow and go safe take an extra day to finish the job but don't rush it since late at night mistakes will show up the morning after and its too late now trust me I know
5. If you want a low maintenance floor, yet also want something that may serve as a selling feature in a couple of years, I suggest looking for something in a laminate floor. This is an industry that is constantly improving its products. You can basically get nearly any type of surface effect you want, most popularly a hardwood surface, but also natural stone or ceramic tile. You can lay it down fairly easily yourself (access to a table saw helps), so you don't have to hire someone. Most laminates these days are glue-free, and come with click-together, tongue and groove locking systems; and they look great. The industry has reached a point where you can even get laminate floors which look just like distressed hardwood, and with textured surfaces and grain patterns which are dead ringers for real hardwood. For re-sale value, the kinds of effects you can get make a big impression on buyers, which is what you want when you're trying to sell. Laminate floors are generally made to be scratch-resistant and moisture-resistant too, which will help in the pets department. Just be sure to clean up messes as soon as you can if you pets aren't house trained. Moisture on any type of floor should be avoided. But laminate floors are pretty easy to maintain when compared to real hardwood. All you need to do is sweep or vacuum regularly. A damp (not wet) mop is a good idea every once in a while too. There are quite a few brands of laminate to consider - Pergo, Kronotex are two big ones, and a few lesser known ones which are just as reliable - Toklo, Lamton, K-swiss, others. But when you're shopping, make sure to get a laminate floor which is rated AC3 or higher. An AC3 rated floor has been tested for general residential usage. Anything less than this rating may not last as long as you need it to in the long term. Make sure to ask your seller about ratings on the laminate flooring they sell. I hope this was useful to you. Good luck!
6. A few articles on laminate flooring http://your-floors.blogspot.com/search/label/Laminate and one on bamboo http://your-floors.blogspot.com/2007/10/bamboo-flooring-good-bad-and-ugly.html