New flooring in Houston--tile, engineered wood or hardwood? What is the general opinion for the Houston housing market? (Plano: hardwood floors, sale)

[Karoe]

I am planning to rip up the carpet here in a Cinco Ranch house, downstairs, and replace it with new flooring. Up north many homeowners, including myself, had hardwood floors. Here there is a great deal of tile in even newer homes. What is the general opinion and preference? Will engineered wood floors hurt a home for resale as does laminate? Is the preference swinging away from tile all over the downstairs? Is tile still the best way to go for a Houston home? Thanks in advance for assistance in making this important decision.

[phaze]

I was about to post something similar since I'm thinking of replacing our carpet. On the same note, is there any disadvantage when it comes to reselling a house if the the flooring is different on each floor? I don't want to spend too much so one option is to put laminate upstairs and downstairs, or choose a really nice hardwood for downstairs and leave the upstairs carpet in place.

[cheryjohns]

Originally Posted by Karoe

I am planning to rip up the carpet here in a Cinco Ranch house, downstairs, and replace it with new flooring. Up north many homeowners, including myself, had hardwood floors. Here there is a great deal of tile in even newer homes. What is the general opinion and preference? Will engineered wood floors hurt a home for resale as does laminate? Is the preference swinging away from tile all over the downstairs? Is tile still the best way to go for a Houston home? Thanks in advance for assistance in making this important decision.

First preference is hardwoods, then tile. Tile for kitchens and baths.

Originally Posted by phaze

I was about to post something similar since I'm thinking of replacing our carpet. On the same note, is there any disadvantage when it comes to reselling a house if the the flooring is different on each floor? I don't want to spend too much so one option is to put laminate upstairs and downstairs, or choose a really nice hardwood for downstairs and leave the upstairs carpet in place.

I would do the hardwoods down and carpet up. That's common. BTW, laminate up is usually noisy.

[phaze]

Ah yes forgot about the noise, Thanks cheryjohns ( I was hoping you'd chime in )

[CAHomeschoolMom]

This is an interesting subject, since we just had to make flooring choices on our new home. I hope it's ok to chime in .

What we did was tile downstairs in the entry, dining room, kitchen and family room, and carpet in the two downstairs bedrooms, study, as well as stairway and upstairs bonus room and bedrooms.

We are hoping to replace the carpet in the next few years with either engineered hardwood or laminate downstairs. I was toying with replacing the carpet on the stairs and upstairs with laminate ( a high grade hand scraped look) , but am a little concerned about sound. I have heard that hardwoods don't work well upstairs in Houston....is this true?

Personally, I hate carpet. It's just too hard to keep clean, and seems to trap odors, too. I have three boys and a dog, and so want something I can swifter away germs and grime from on a regular basis.

Does laminate and engineered hardwood really hurt resale value???

[cheryjohns]

Laminate - yes, it hurts above a certain price point. That varies across town. Go onto HAR.com and look to see how many homes on the market in your subdivision have carpet, laminate, hardwood or tile in the main family rooms (den, dining, etc.). If you see a lot of hardwood and tile in the mix - don't do laminate. If you see mostly carpet and no hardwood, laminate won't hurt you, but tile is roughly the same price and wears better (and usually looks better).

I have seen laminates so good that I had to touch it to determine what it was - but that is usually as expensive as the real thing.

Hardwoods can go upstairs, just most people don't because of the expense and wanting a soft flooring in the bedrooms (also quieter with carpet).

[Johnhw2]

I remodeled my home in 77079 to live in long term but after a couple of years we decided to move to DFW and sold it. I got a great price for my neighborhood in 77079 and the feedback on flooring was one of the key reasons, counter tops was the other.

For downstairs, we used a high end engineered wood. I put it in all but the utility room and baths downstairs. So it was in the kitchen area as well. Many told me to that was risky but I went to consumer reports, which for kitchen recommended for wood floors to use a bamboo engineered wood. I later put the same floor in my upstairs game room. There are several choices of look in the bamboo, but we chose one that was looked like a rich hardwood not bamboo, I believe the bamboo was layed on its side on the backing, because the prominent knees or knots of bamboo wasnt noticeable. I understand this technique also makes the floor more resistent to dints. Our home had antique white paneling downstairs which was great with the rich wood floors.

In 2010, we closed on the sale within 90 days and that was after being under contract with a seller who was not someone I wanted to do business with after his bickering over inspections and our offer to fix the major items not disclosed in the mls disclosure and part of the pre inspection price negotiation. We got out of option period from the first buyer and were back under contract in four days with a buyer who closed in 45 days including year end holidays. The feedback from both parties who put my home under contract was the floor choice was a big item.

My choice of flooring was not inexpensive it cost as much as handscraped wood floors I added to my Plano home but I felt for the Houston climate and my neighborhood it was the best choice.

The other item we got great feedback on was putting granite counters in all four full baths. By doing it all at once I got a price that was attractive and we liked the look. I also removed the 1970's style "plastic looking" tub shower surround and replaced it with a real tub and tiled the walls and floors with a nice stone looking tile commercial grade, which was also used in the utility area downstairs.

I highly recommend the flooring we used for Houston but it isnt inexperience as cheryjohns noted above but for the price range of my home was a good fit.

[testmo]

true hardwood floors do have a lot of problems in the Houston climate. engineered hardwood can actually be quite more durable, does better with expansion and contraction, and does way better with humidity. i wouldn't risk putting in hardwood and then have to rip out and redo a few years or less down the road. a high quality engineered looks and feels just as good. it is not necessarily much cheaper but labor is easier to do yourself

i have engineered hardwood in formal living, bedroom hallway, and dining room; stone tile in entrance way, living, kitchen and laundry; carpet in bedrooms, a different stone tile from the rest of the house in bathrooms

having nice floors and sink/kitchen counter tops recently done was a big selling point for me in this purchase. i did the engineered hardwood myself after ripping out the carpet

[cheryjohns]

Originally Posted by Johnhw2

I remodeled my home in 77079 to live in long term but after a couple of years we decided to move to DFW and sold it. I got a great price for my neighborhood in 77079 and the feedback on flooring was one of the key reasons, counter tops was the other.

For downstairs, we used a high end engineered wood. I put it in all but the utility room and baths downstairs. So it was in the kitchen area as well. Many told me to that was risky but I went to consumer reports, which for kitchen recommended for wood floors to use a bamboo engineered wood. I later put the same floor in my upstairs game room. There are several choices of look in the bamboo, but we chose one that was looked like a rich hardwood not bamboo, I believe the bamboo was layed on its side on the backing, because the prominent knees or knots of bamboo wasnt noticeable. I understand this technique also makes the floor more resistent to dints. Our home had antique white paneling downstairs which was great with the rich wood floors.

In 2010, we closed on the sale within 90 days and that was after being under contract with a seller who was not someone I wanted to do business with after his bickering over inspections and our offer to fix the major items not disclosed in the mls disclosure and part of the pre inspection price negotiation. We got out of option period from the first buyer and were back under contract in four days with a buyer who closed in 45 days including year end holidays. The feedback from both parties who put my home under contract was the floor choice was a big item.

My choice of flooring was not inexpensive it cost as much as handscraped wood floors I added to my Plano home but I felt for the Houston climate and my neighborhood it was the best choice.

The other item we got great feedback on was putting granite counters in all four full baths. By doing it all at once I got a price that was attractive and we liked the look. I also removed the 1970's style "plastic looking" tub shower surround and replaced it with a real tub and tiled the walls and floors with a nice stone looking tile commercial grade, which was also used in the utility area downstairs.

I highly recommend the flooring we used for Houston but it isnt inexperience as cheryjohns noted above but for the price range of my home was a good fit.

john, did you find the bamboo floors durable while living on them? I have heard that they are - but never talked to a homeowner who actually had them.

[Johnhw2]

Originally Posted by cheryjohns

john, did you find the bamboo floors durable while living on them? I have heard that they are - but never talked to a homeowner who actually had them.

Yes I did, consumer reports which tests various measures of durability rated them higher than other woods in this regard. We have 3 small dogs which had the run of the house and the floor looked flawless the several years we lived in the home with them. I literally used not just the bamboo but the brand recommended and test as tops by consumer reports. My experience matched their high ratings