Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Hard wood or laminating flooring?

I am about to move in my new house.

The current staircase laminating flood is in bad shape now and need replacement.

Which would be better? Changing to a new laminating wood floor or some hard wood floor or just change to to tiles?

Carpet.

Personally I'd go with hardwood, laminate to me, looks cheap and "plasticy".

mpyw, you should be able to find some really nice exotic hardwood flooring in your part of the world.

Also, the laminate I've seen tends to show every little bit of dirt and smudges. If it's not kept extremely clean, you can tell.

I vote hardwood as well. In particular I have had some great success with engineered bamboo flooring - I love the look (lots to choose from) and in 3 years appears to be more durable than the 'natural' hardwood I have in other parts of the house. Also with the bamboo being manufactured hardwood I had no bad or warped pieces to weed out while installing. My 2 cents for the day.

If it's on your staircase, what about doing it in oak and staining it? A dark stain looks really nice.

No carpet on my staircase :p

I am favoring hardwood as well but the cost might be double as compared to laminated floor

I would choose hardwood over laminate any day.

My parents just had red oak wood floors installed in their house and they were stained with a light to medium color that really brought out the wood grain. It looks fabulous.

Definitely go with hardwood. I just replaced a laminate floor in my dining room with hardwood. As everyone is stating, laminate does not compare to a real hardwood product. The additional cost is well worth it.

I'm going to go against the grain and say laminate, especially if cost is an issue. We have a home daycare, with 8-10 kids in the house every day. I put Pergo in our kitchen 5 years ago and it still looks great. It takes a lot of abuse and cleans up at the end of the day with just a damp Swiffer. Granted, it won't fool anyone into thinking it's real wood, but for the money I can't complain.

They're making laminate with grain now?

Wouldn't Oak be cheaper than laminate?

Laminate starts around $ .75 and up....the cheapest Oak, Maple or Birch I've seen is about $2.29 sq ft(usually more depending on grade). Engineered hdwd is usually close on price to 3/4" solid hdwd.

Yikes. Just carpet it.

I'm with Joe on this one. If there are kids involved a good laminate will take the abuse, hardowod will never survive. Having just moved from our old house where I installed laminate which replaced our carpet after the first child destroyed it with, well I won't go into that. The laminate withstood all we allowed him to throw at it, literally. Oddly for our new house we asked about going with laminate instead of hardwood but the home builders get such a good deal on hardwood it was cheaper than laminate. Coming up on one year now with Maple hardwood and it already shows more wear than the laminate ever did after 6 years at the old place.

I have laminate that I installed through my entire house. Do I like the look of hardwood better? Of course. However, I have two kids, two cats and a dog and hardwood floors would look like crap in no time. Pets and kids are a definite consideration. I also would not have been able to afford hardwood throughout the house.

Regarding the laminate with wood grain... I'll snap a shot of my parents floor next time I am over there as an example. In my opinion no laminate can come close to how gorgeous their floor is.

While my parents didn't go with this option, I like the look of lightly distressed hard woods

http://www.penningtonhardwoods.com/hs_rawhi.htm.

Davidsch, if you go with a distressed wood floor you don't have to worry as much about minor scrapes and dings as they are already there to begin with

I find distressing my wood quite enjoyable. I've paid to have it distressed, and it's quite expensive.

I see. Fyre Starter got her name because she's good with wood!

. Yeah, J.P; she can really stroke a fire well. Or is it stoke? Either way, I wouldn't recommend distressing your wood with a bunch of other guys. Now that's distracting!

Wood on stairs is slippery. I've gone down mine on my ass more times than I care to remember. And no, I wasn't drinking; not every time anyway. Typically, when wood is chosen, it is only the outer most six inches or so on the runers and carpet is installed between the wood ends. You might want to consider doing something like that.

Laminate is slipper too btw.

Mike brings up a very good point--I'd be pretty nervous about that.

Does the staircase have a railing?

D'oh I guess I should have read the original post. I didn't realize this was for stairs. In no way, shape or form would I ever install wood or laminate on a full stair case, a riser or 2 is OK. As Mike said it is too slippery for my liking, the carpet runner with wood on the sides looks elegant and is much safer, IMO. Depending on the tiles this might work a little better but even they can be a little slippery.

At first mp said staircase, then he said floor, so I wasn't sure if it was one or the other or both. Definitely need a runner on the stairs if they were done in hardwood.

Skateboard grip tape.

Bren R.

I actually told my parents to put some of that grip-tape down on their deck steps after my mother slipped on them last year.

When I got the quote from my stairs, it was quoted to do them in oak. The slipperiness of wood on stairs is a very valid point, but I've seen just as many staircases with wooden stairs, as I have staircases done in carpet. Carpet can also be very slippery, especially when people are wearing indoor footwear such as slippers. A quick search online will yield some complaints of people slipping on both types of material.

If there's a railing, and it's being used for its utility, it will drastically reduce the chances of slipping down the stairs.

Am I right in thinking that oak wouldn't be as slippery (pending it's not stained to a mirror finish) as hardwood or laminate?

Isn't that why they call them SLIPpers?

Reagrding Oak, not in my experience, it is still a smooth surface once finished properly like any other hardwood. Any hard surface is inherently more slippery than softer, textured ones, textured being the key component.

I am looking for woods for staircase and a hobby room for games/exercise/ballet practices..

How about this texture

I can't help with the efficacy of hand scraped wood, but if you don't mind painting your stairs, there are non-slip foor paints or other anti-slip coatings like this available. The non-slip floor paints are frequently suggested to queries by people online that are looking for a solution to slippery wooden staircase's.

Thanks Cam for your suggestion, will check if the paint available locally over here

There is also a product(very fine sand) you can add to any paint to make it antislip.