As much as I want true hardwood floors, I know I should get laminates because I have a large dog. For those of you who have put in laminate floors, how do you like them? Do they rival the quality of the HW in appearance? I guess I've seen more low end laminate than high end so I don't really know what to expect with the finished product...
Am I right in going w/ the laminates b/c of the dog? Any other things to consider when making this decision?
We with laminate because of dogs (2 70 lb dogs) and kids. We went with the Level 2 laminate because it was more realistic looking and had the wider plank that we liked. It also has a 30 year wear warranty, so that sounded perfect to us.
ReplyDeleteWe have hardwood just in our current foyer and it really hasn't gotten scratched up that much with the dogs. It has held up pretty well. Hardwood can always be refinished and with only one dog, it might be ok for you. Does your dog do a lot of running inside? Just walking around shouldn't damage the hardwoods much.
I guess that wasn't much help, but it might give you some things to think about :)
We put in hardwood with two boxers. We came from a house with Pergo Laminate. The dog's nails were NO issue on the laminate. But, it was laminate. It was nice, but it wasn't hardwood.
ReplyDeleteSo we move in to the house and in 6ish weeks, the dogs have managed to "indent" the surface. It's not a scratch, but you can see the "indentions" in the right light. I was cutting the nails every week BUT I was not rounding the edges. Starting two weeks ago, I started cutting and then using a sanding drum on a dremel to round all edges. I haven't seen any new marks. So I think I have figured out the key.
also, if you don't want to screw with a dremel, check out "softpaws.com". Good reviews
ReplyDeleteWe were going to get the laminate, but the SR let us see how it looked in one of the other houses and we didn't like it. It didn't look enough like hardwood, and it creaked a lot. That may have been something they were able to fix, but I wasn't impressed. She suggested the upgraded laminate, but didn't have a sample of it. Since we have a big dog too, we were not sure if HW was a good idea so we actually decided to go with the most basic flooring options and will probably make some changes in a few years.
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