Facing of the home (West: hardwood floors, new house, to buy)

[Guingirl]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

That is right. Red is IN for dining rooms. I have it in mine as do most of my neighbors. Carpet in the dining rooms - it is cheaper than wood. Since it gets less foot traffic than other areas it can handle the carpet. Mine has carpet . Next big home improvement project, wood floors in the dining room, family room and master bedroom. Then EVERYTHING downstairs will be wood , minus the bathrooms which are slate.

My Mom has all wood floors and tile in her new home. I loved the look of it, but honestly...its kind of a pain. We had to go get all new slippers because we couldn't stand to go barefoot on it because it hurt our feet too much. There was no cushion at all. The only thing that is carpeted is her closet. For me having everything hard isn't a good thing.

[socketz]

Guingirl,

I agree with you 100%.

For me, I like hard in entrance/walk ways just for the maintenance aspect, but I walk around with no shoes in the house, so my ankles ache when I stand on hard floors, especially tile. If it made sense, I'd carpet the kitchen with a nice high quality Friesz or cut berber.

Wood looks amazing, but not real practical. It's like you'll spend your life worrying if the wood will scratch or get wet or fade....carpet, vaccum and get it cleaned every 8 months. Done. Laminate floors are big in CA, but appear to be taboo out here. If you buy quality laminate, it looks like wood but is infinitely more durable/usable.

[momof2dfw]

Real wood floors are actually "soft" on your feet and legs and are great in all areas downstairs. Tile is not as forgiving and can be hard on your feet and knees. I have real wood floors, not pre-engineered or laminate. There is no worry about them getting wet, scraped or faded, same as carpet in those cases really. Even carpet fades from sun exposure, another reason to have your windows tinted. Getting wet is easy, just wipe it up. Much easier than carpet as it can soak to the pad and cause problems later. And as far as scratching up the floors w/ dogs, forget it. We have two dogs, both small now but we did have an 80lb Dal and he never caused any harm at all to the floors. The ONLY thing that we have had happen to the wood floors was in the study by the chair I am sitting in. We took our time finding a rug for in here and in so doing it scratched the poly topcoat off . at ourselves over that. I've dropped glass jars that have broken on the wood and nothing happened. They are really strong and they are very forgiving on the feet and legs.

No, laminate does not go over well in the upper end homes out here at all. In your lower end homes it is fine. Guess that is what blows my mind when watching some of the shows like "Designed to Sell" or "House Hunters" as most are in Cali and they show these homes w/ granite countertops (sometimes granite tiles which are not as good as solid slab either) and then rolled laminate on the floors. Talk about both ends of the spectrum there. LOL!!! Let's put one of the most expensive building materials on the counters and find the cheapest thing possible for the floors. LOL!!! I'll never get that.

[bookworm2768]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

No, laminate does not go over well in the upper end homes out here at all. In your lower end homes it is fine. Guess that is what blows my mind when watching some of the shows like "Designed to Sell" or "House Hunters" as most are in Cali and they show these homes w/ granite countertops (sometimes granite tiles which are not as good as solid slab either) and then rolled laminate on the floors. Talk about both ends of the spectrum there. LOL!!! Let's put one of the most expensive building materials on the counters and find the cheapest thing possible for the floors. LOL!!! I'll never get that.

Laminate floors are the worst con job the decorating industry has pulled recently. Yes they look great if you buy the slightly more expensive ones but they dent, scratch and get gouged very easily. And then, unlike wood, you have the green underlayer peeping through. You could walk around filling in the dings of course but it screams cheap to me. I'd rather invest in tile, slate or quality carpet anyday.

[CarolAnn64]

I currently live in a home with nothing but wood and tile. I clean CONSTANTLY. You can see every speck of dust..and then I have dog's so there is hair everywhere. I hate it! While I know my home is probably the cleanest home I have lived in, I get tired of Swiffering non-stop.

FYI..my folks had a VERY low pile carpet in our kitchen growing up. My mom also carpets bathrooms. I never thought anything of it until I had my own house.

[MurphyPl1]

Originally Posted by socketz

Wood looks amazing, but not real practical. It's like you'll spend your life worrying if the wood will scratch or get wet or fade....carpet, vaccum and get it cleaned every 8 months. Done. Laminate floors are big in CA, but appear to be taboo out here. If you buy quality laminate, it looks like wood but is infinitely more durable/usable.

We've got scraped hardwoods because we've got 4 cats and a dog and I didn't want to worry about scrapes. And with the grain highlighted and picking up additional stain, I also don't worry about something staining my wood.

[GayleTX]

A little off-topice, but......A salesperson I know who sells nice homes in subdivisions has many customers who come house-shopping (or lot-shopping) carrying their compass with them. Before they even look at a lot or a house or discuss price or anything else - they pull out the compass. And if they buy a lot to build a house they have to mail a box of the soil 'back home' to grandmother for a blessing before construction can begin. All that has nothing to do with environmental concerns, of course. But it has been a interesting cultural awareness for the salesperson.

[harishv]

I agree with Momof2 about the direction of homes. The same sun on the west that will warm your house in the summer increasing electric bills will warm your house in the winter as well and keep electric/gas bills down in the winter. Further, ewst facing backyards - even if it shines into living areas typically have the best views because of the gorgeous sunsets.
While a west facing living areas type home is not the ideal situation, i dont believe it affects home sales one way or another. If you go to golf course communities, the golf course lots typically face the west for the sunsets and the golf course views.

[bookworm2768]

Originally Posted by harishv

I agree with Momof2 about the direction of homes. The same sun on the west that will warm your house in the summer increasing electric bills will warm your house in the winter as well and keep electric/gas bills down in the winter. Further, ewst facing backyards - even if it shines into living areas typically have the best views because of the gorgeous sunsets.
While a west facing living areas type home is not the ideal situation, i dont believe it affects home sales one way or another. If you go to golf course
communities, the golf course lots typically face the west for the sunsets and the golf course views.

I think with the way homes are built nowadays and with appropriate insulation the placing of the rooms is probably not as important as it was a few decades ago. We are renting an older badly insulated home at the moment and the kids bedroom (facing west) would heat up like an oven and stay warm until late at night. And the master bedroom (facing east) would be uncomfortably hot until well after noon when the soon moved over to the other side of the house. I think without central air the location of the rooms would be absolutely crucial to comfort but I'm not so sure if the issue is that important in newer well built homes.

Having said that, when we shopped around for homes I did check to make sure that the bedrooms were not built on the west side of the house

[ttt123]

hey ...we r considering to buy a south east facing house...so give the suggestions for that?....plz