Hi there! I've been lurking these boards (from recipes to gardening tips) for over a year and have finally hit a stump on house renovations, so I thought I should finally join.

Quick intro on our house: 750 sq ft house originally built in 2006, purchased by husband and I in 2011, moved to our farm on top of a new basement build, and an addition of 1500 sq ft and a two-car garage began in September 2013, finished early summer 2014 (bare bones with interior framing, all new windows, doors, covered deck and siding).

We installed a floating LVP/LVT (can't remember the distinction atm) in our 650 sq ft. living space, mostly just to cover up the subfloor. We also installed a thicker square vinyl square "tile" in the half-bath and master bath by the same company. The flooring is absolutely beautiful and complied nicely with my dream of continuous flooring through the top floor.

Sadly, it hasn't worked so well. It is starting to pull apart in both the living space and bathrooms, leaving horrendous and large gaps that is driving me absolutely bonkers. It's heartbreaking because the flooring is durable (my son has even walked with his new skates across the flooring without any marks or issues!) and a gorgeous dark oak colour. But we are heavily contemplating tearing it up and finding something new, on advice from a neighbour that installed flooring frequently in the past. He said that the flooring is nice but the "locking" technique is terrible.

So. What do we do now? We aren't cheap but we don't have the money to install porcelain or hardwood through the entire house, especially while still making payments to the builders. We also live in the Canadian Prairies and live on a farm, which means mud, rain, snow and cold for a better part of the year.

While I didn't want to, I'm thinking of installing a porcelain or slate tile in the entrance and mudroom, a laminate or engineered in the living area and a more affordable tile or even durable vinyl in the kitchen. This wouldn't be horrible if our entire upstairs wasn't entirely open, creating a mishmash of different flooring that I wanted to avoid. Our entrance is completely open into our living room, with a 6 ft wall and a 4 ft. entrance into our kitchen. Through our kitchen, it connects directly to our mini-mudroom and pantry area.

So my question is two-fold. What is the best kind of flooring for wet, muddy, cold climates and how to make different flooring transition nicely in an open concept house?

This post was edited by moledro on Fri, Oct 3, 14 at 18:21