Talk to me about wood flooring

[Anonymous]

We are about to embark upon a redo of our family room. Currently it is wall to wall carpeted which we will be tearing out. Underneath is plank boards. We want to put in wood. Contractors are suggesting laminate wood or engineered wood. What are the pros and cons of these vs. hardwood? We have hardwood floors in the rest of the house and whatever we put in will have to match. I know hard wood flooring is always listed as a selling point for homes, but how much does it really matter to people?

[Anonymous]

It matters to me. I loathe carpeting.
Laminate, no.
Solid hardwood is best, but prefinished hardwood is second choice, and cheaper initially because you don't have to sand, stain, poly.
Tile can be acceptable in a family room, especially if you install heating under the tile.

[Anonymous]

I hate carpet also. It gets disgusting.

We had hardwood in our last 2 houses and have laminate in our current home. Laminate is cheaper and harder to scratch/damage. Some people don't like it because it isn't "real" hardwood, but ours is a "realistic" looking one, unless you are on the floor playing w/kids or really look hard, you won't be able to tell. We actually didn't even notice until pretty far along in the homebuying process.

[Anonymous]

What do you currently have? I'd do the same. Contractors like laminate as its easier to install. Real hard wood is much harder but doable and has to be finished onsite.

[Anonymous]

I don't like laminate and it's not that much cheaper. Get whatever will 100% match the other wood floors. I hate it when they all look different.

[Anonymous]

There are some really good deals available on Hard wood floors at the moment.

I found some on Build Direct, a Canadian Maple hardwood floor in a dark stain for around $3.29 per sq ft. It was reduced from about $10 per sq. ft so I paid $1,185 instead of $3600 for the 360 sq feet we needed.

Delivery was around $75 and installation - its tied up with the cost of having all the other floors in the house refinished to match this one, so I don't know what the install alone fee would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate carpet also. It gets disgusting.

We had hardwood in our last 2 houses and have laminate in our current home. Laminate is cheaper and harder to scratch/damage. Some people don't like it because it isn't "real" hardwood, but ours is a "realistic" looking one, unless you are on the floor playing w/kids or really look hard, you won't be able to tell. We actually didn't even notice until pretty far along in the homebuying process.

How often do you replace area rugs?