Wood Flooring (wood floors, homes, buy)

[texas7]

How does Lumber Liquidators work - you buy your flooring and hire your own contractors to install?

I am looking to do wood flooring in my downstairs - but want a bit of a distressed look wood so that small nicks and scratches are noticeable over time. Is there a particular wood that is good for what I am looking for? What about flooring companies - has anyone used one in the area they strongly recommend?

[TimBomb]

Floor and Decor Outlets of America

[texas7]

I undertand laminate is not good for resale. So what is engineered wood flooring? Isn't that still laminate? Want to go with real wood so resale value of home is good.

[Supermac34]

Engineered wood flooring is NOT laminate. Each wood plank is a veneer of real wood (oak, cherry, whatever) laid down on a base of composite wood or strong plywood. It is much preferred to laminate.

95% wood floors installed today are engineered wood, even in very upper end homes. Most companies and people do not think it is worth investing in 100% solid wood floors anymore.

It is stronger, more durable, less likely to warp, less likely to be damaged by moisture, etc.

Another good place to check out is Floor & Decor on I45 at 1960. They have reasonable prices, but you will have to find someone to install for you.

[testmo]

laminate is basically a plastic made to look like wood. some of it is pretty good and looks like wood but if you touch it it feels like rubber. it can also scrape up like linoleum which is what it basically is. its cheap and not worth it

make sure if you hire a contractor they put down a proper sub floor. ive seen businesses lay the hardwoods right over concrete

[crone]

Be careful of engineered floors. Be sure to get the kind that can be refinished. Accidents happen and some cannot be fixed. Some are faded by the sun. My neighbors scratched and could not bee repaired. Had to replaced whole floor.

[Txgal33]

There are differ grades of engineered wood flooring and you want to make sure you get the best grade so it will be more durable! I agree Floor & Decor OUtlet on 45 rocks! You can even have them send somebody out to quote you a price on rip out/installation but know that F&D is not responsible for the work done. At least that is what we were told when we had them come out.
As for laminate flooring it all depends on what level your home is at and of course what grade again. We put down laminate in our first home because at the time nothing else was in our budget. It did NOT effect the value of our home when it came time to sell. Now I would NOT put laminate in a higher end home.
We just replaced our flooring with a higher grande engineered wood flooring. We love it and it looks great. Distressed so it will not show wear and tear from two boys. We lucked up and got ours on clearance at HomeDepot though. We then saved half and installed our selves though that is tough work and if you can find somebody reasonable to do it for you and you value your weekends and sanity I would say hire it out. We did all the grunt out of tearing out the carpet and the old wood flooring. We then glued our flooring down but once we got to our foyer...we did the living room plus retiled the fireplace...we were tired and were lucky enough to have a friends who helped us finish it out. Took the crew less than a day after we had already spent three months getting to that point. They laid/glued the foyer, office, and dining room and went thru and put down the new trim.