Mine is 50' long x 30' wide on our biggest floor and the max run before needing an expansion strip on my product was 50'. Get a product that has dimensions that work for your house. They scream, look I have a fake wood floor. ![]() Sidepoint: Keys to making it look good with laminate:ġ) actually do the prep so it doesn't flexĢ) don't install in a repeating 3rds pattern, but do random lengths on each run (use cuts from other side staggering them so the lines vary all over the floor, with minimum 6" between joints or as recommended)ģ) t moldings ruin it. If you are providing the labor try to get a solid product so you never have to do it again. Just a point to consider and probably part of the reason for the bias against it. ![]() However, while I fully anticipate my wood floors would be scratched to hell by now.I wouldn't have to tear up and reinstall (I dislike doing trim by quarter round addition) everything to refinish them. I was a student with a kid when I did it, so my labor was cheaper than now. Why I recommend them with a caveat? my one regret with installing these- the labor. I think you can make the argument either way. So it is all about perspective and where you are. I have some family that are a bit pretentious and even they have warmed to it after lamenting how their dogs have destroyed their swedish finish and our floors are completely unfazed from them. There is one major scratch that no one knows where it is but me, most don't notice due to the pattern. Multiple friends of ours have installed it despite my precautions (water risk/labor-I'll come back to this) because it just looks good and beats disgusting old carpet (allergens). 5 years down the line, 2 kids, 2 dogs and a cat and it still looks great. That said, I have laminate flooring we installed because at the time it was what we could afford. This is all true, though proper install can do a lot to minimize sound and flex, and while a quality product can make it harder tell, I struggle with the fake wood vs real wood thing myself. Here's an old post of mine where I went into all the floor covering options, pros and cons. I shopped forever for it, but it was so good that, though you could tell it wasn't real wood, it didn't matter. I did a whole house in wood-look tile and everyone (myself included) loved it. That's not to say that not-wood is a terrible choice, just know what you're getting. ![]() There are laminates that are good enough to pass, to my amatuer eye, but those are so expensive that real wood is cheaper. My primary gripe is that I can easily tell when a floor is not-wood. This is also a con to tile and stone, but it's worth mentioning. It's just not pleasant to live with every day. This can cause foot/leg fatigue among other things. So if you're on a slab, vinyl will feel like you're walking on a concrete slab all the time. Because it has no backing, vinyl is as firm as the subfloor you put it over. Moisture is laminate's worst enemy and you'd be surprised how hard it is to keep the floor dry from everything that can possibly happen to it. You can instantly identify a laminate floor within three steps. ![]() When you walk on it, you can feel it flex and hard shoes or pet nails sound like a snare drum. Laminate is typically installed as a floating floor. It comes across as cheap because it is cheap. Repeated patterns, wrong textures and a waxy-looking sheen are common problems. Therefore, to one degree or another, they will always look a little fake. I'll tell you why I don't like laminate and vinyl and you can decide:īoth products are trying to look like wood, but they are not wood. An alternative to this question is: If laminate and vinyl are so good, why don't moderately rich people put them in their homes?
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