Knotty pine floors and dogs (hardwood floors, maple, color, door)
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I'm going to be building a house and want to design with a rustic mountain theme in mind. I really like the look of knotty pine floors, but being a softer wood, I worry about the potential wear and tear on the floors due to the presence of three dogs, two of them pretty large.
Can anyone speak to their personal experience, good or bad, with knotty pine floors?
I'd also really like to do reclaimed wood floors, but was shocked to see how expensive they are ($7.00 sq.ft. and up). Site-finished hickory might be my next choice, but I'm open to other suggestions you all might have as well.
Family member had hardwood floors installed, and the dog has clawed them in areas where he spends the most time. I don't think your plan for floors is the best.
In my experience, even though the finish is more important than hardness vs softness, pine (especially site-finished) is definitely one of the worst with dogs. Any friend or family member who has pine and has a dog has scratches and digs all over it. We have pre-finished Birch and I can't find a scratch on it yet after 9 months. YMMV.
Just depends on how much you want to avoid the scratches vs how much you want the look.
In my experience, even though the finish is more important than hardness vs softness, pine (especially site-finished) is definitely one of the worst with dogs. Any friend or family member who has pine and has a dog has scratches and digs all over it. We have pre-finished Birch and I can't find a scratch on it yet after 9 months. YMMV.
Just depends on how much you want to avoid the scratches vs how much you want the look.
Thanks. I like birch as well.
I currently have pre-finished maple (engineered), and it didn't take long to mar them up (probably due to the finish, not the hardwood itself). I've read that pre-finished will be more resistant, but that hasn't been the case here.
Prefinished definitely typically has a more scratch-resistant finish; however, some animals will scratch through it regardless depending on size/activity level. Birch and Maple wear pretty similarly.
In our previous house, we had knotty pine and I loved it. But it did have scratches from our medium sized dog. In our current house we did engineered hickory (for our Colorado rustic home) and love it, too. Its a hard wood and it's in a main flow area. so far so good (now 2 medium sized dogs.) I have a thread on this forum involving the process of ordering it online, if you'd like to take a look. //www.city-data.com/forum/home-...ng-online.html If I did the link correctly, that's it. If you want more info, let me know. My husband installed ours, as well.
I currently have pre-finished maple (engineered), and it didn't take long to mar them up (probably due to the finish, not the hardwood itself). I've read that pre-finished will be more resistant, but that hasn't been the case here.
The word on engineered wood is that it is very prone to being scratched up because it isn't solid wood. Why don't you visit a local flooring store and ask questions about what floor would work for your situation? That's how you learn things. Visit several stores and ask a million questions.
The word on engineered wood is that it is very prone to being scratched up because it isn't solid wood. Why don't you visit a local flooring store and ask questions about what floor would work for your situation? That's how you learn things. Visit several stores and ask a million questions.
That is just a myth that must have been perpetuated by some flooring place who only sells solid. The fact that it is not solid wood throughout has little to no bearing on whether it scratches easier or not.
Scratches are a surface imperfection. In fact, the species of wood isn't even the most important factor in scratches. FINISH is the most important factor in scratches. In my limited experience (I'm just a homeowner who did a ton of research before installing hardwood floors last year; I don't sell this stuff or anything), the engineered hardwood floors actually held up BETTER than site-finished hardwoods as far as scratches go. Now, the real reason they held up better was that they can use a different coating in the factory than in your house, so it is the pre-finished aspect that makes it more scratch resistant, not the fact that it is engineered - it just happens to be that all engineered floors are prefinished. This means that both prefinished engineered AND prefinished solid are more scratch resistant than a site-finished solid (both in theory and in the many tests I conducted with our dog, keys, knives, etc.)
Species of wood plays a small factor, but more with gouges/denting in my experience. A very soft wood floor like pine tends to take more wear and tear overall though, even though the finish is more responsible for scratches. And once again, engineered vs solid didn't really play a role here.
It all depends on the quality of the finish and the species of wood. My parents just moved, and had Maple engineered hardwood installed in their house for years with a hyper chow and multiple cats and people viewing their house before they just sold it kept asking their realtors if the floors were brand new It was another factor that helped us decide to go with engineered (and we have had a similar experience with nearly 0 scratches with our dog).
Disclaimer: I like solid hardwoods plenty, if not better in plenty of cases (depends on the width of the desired boards, style of the house etc.) so I am not saying that engineered is always the answer even though it my seem like that; however, lots of people tend to have poor misconceptions about engineered so I find myself chiming in to support engineered more. It probably makes my opinion look skewed.
We have a knotty pine floor in our mudroom. (Installed by the previous owner who had no pets.) Between our 2 dogs and 3 cats, it's been scratched up quite a bit. Didn't take long either from the time we moved in. I will be refinishing the floor and putting down a large indoor/outdoor rug when we get ready to sell. I love the look of knotty pine floors, but they're just not practical.
My parents installed wide pine unfinished planks in their house years ago, they are very very soft and their dogs definitely do scratch them up pretty good. They are a pretty easy refinish though, my Dad just did another refinish last summer, it took a weekend, but he did it himself and it looks great. It's definitely beautiful!
I worked for a flooring distributor for several years and if I remember correctly, Hickory is one of the hardest after some of the exotics, and is really gorgeous, a lot of color variation, so it would look great for a rustic look. I believe the wider the plank, the less stability the floor has as well, so I would stay under 8-9" widths if possible. Good luck!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jamiecta
That is just a myth that must have been perpetuated by some flooring place who only sells solid. The fact that it is not solid wood throughout has little to no bearing on whether it scratches easier or not.
Scratches are a surface imperfection. In fact, the species of wood isn't even the most important factor in scratches. FINISH is the most important factor in scratches. In my limited experience (I'm just a homeowner who did a ton of research before installing hardwood floors last year; I don't sell this stuff or anything), the engineered hardwood floors actually held up BETTER than site-finished hardwoods as far as scratches go. Now, the real reason they held up better was that they can use a different coating in the factory than in your house, so it is the pre-finished aspect that makes it more scratch resistant, not the fact that it is engineered - it just happens to be that all engineered floors are prefinished. This means that both prefinished engineered AND prefinished solid are more scratch resistant than a site-finished solid (both in theory and in the many tests I conducted with our dog, keys, knives, etc.)
Species of wood plays a small factor, but more with gouges/denting in my experience. A very soft wood floor like pine tends to take more wear and tear overall though, even though the finish is more responsible for scratches. And once again, engineered vs solid didn't really play a role here.
It all depends on the quality of the finish and the species of wood. My parents just moved, and had Maple engineered hardwood installed in their house for years with a hyper chow and multiple cats and people viewing their house before they just sold it kept asking their realtors if the floors were brand new It was another factor that helped us decide to go with engineered (and we have had a similar experience with nearly 0 scratches with our dog).
Disclaimer: I like solid hardwoods plenty, if not better in plenty of cases (depends on the width of the desired boards, style of the house etc.) so I am not saying that engineered is always the answer even though it my seem like that; however, lots of people tend to have poor misconceptions about engineered so I find myself chiming in to support engineered more. It probably makes my opinion look skewed.
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It was another factor that helped us decide to go with engineered (and we have had a similar experience with nearly 0 scratches with our dog).
