best flooring to replace carpet for $130k house??

10 years ago

What flooring type would you recommend for our situation? Laminate? Engineered hardwoods? Bamboo?

My husband and I moved into our first house a year ago. It's an open floor plan, built in 2000, and the houses in our neighborhood average $130,000-$135,000. We live in a small city in central Arkansas. We are looking for a hard surface floor covering to replace the wall-to-wall carpeting, and possibly the kitchen tile. My husband really likes laminate floor, and I do too, as long as it won't make our house look cheap or dated.

Right now we have tile in the kitchen (pink undertones, oak cabinets - which may be painted white or stained darker in the future), linoleum in the bathrooms (with yellow undertones), and a VERY worn out light colored carpet that shows every stain. It was already pulling away from the wall when we bought the house and it's only getting worse. We have two dogs who shed a LOT, and my husband and I both have allergies. (Side note: I recently borrowed my mother's Rainbow vacuum to deep clean our master bedroom carpet and it seriously looked like I could make a small dog with the amount of hair I vacuumed! Yuk!) Anyway, we feel that nixing the carpets would not only make the house look and feel cleaner, but would actually be easier to keep clean.

I am also really concerned with the amount of VOCs and other harmful off-gasses that come with many floorings, especially vinyl. My husband calls me a hippy granola "crunchy" type and thinks I'm overreacting, but I would really prefer a floor that is low to no VOC, especially since it will go in all the bedrooms--including one that may someday be a baby's nursery.

So I have three factors to consider:
- price point of house/neighborhood
- dogs' nails = scratch potential
- low to no VOC / "healthy" flooring

What flooring would you recommend?? Also, would you rip out the tile in the kitchen or leave it and just replace the carpet?

Thanks in advance!! :-)

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Comments (4)

User
10 years ago
Wood floors in entry level homes is unusual, so take a look at your neighbors and see what they have. You'll probably see a lot of laminate, carpet, and vinyl. Those are entry level materials for most of the country. AR has many different communities though, and a 130K home in some rural communities would be more a middle of the road home than an entry level, so that's why I say look at what your neighbors have. You don't want to spend money to upgrade beyond what they've done, unless it is specifically for a health issue. You'd be doing that as an expense, not a recoupable "upgrade". No amount of upgrades will take an entry level home in an entry level neighborhood to a mid grade home. So, save your money on that front.

With your requirements, porcelain tile would come the nearest to satisfying all of your requirements. Perhaps something that looks like natural slate or even wood would be better in appearance though than the generic beige tile that you currently have. Putting down washable throw rugs for some warmth in the winter months can soften the tile, but it will be really nice and cool in the longer cooling season of the summer. Tile is also something that a novice DIYer can develop some skills and do the install themselves and save some money. Labor is always the biggest component, so that's an important consideration when considering replacing all of your flooring.
JessicaW0614
Original Author
10 years ago
After looking online at houses that have sold in my neighborhood recently, it seems that they have do have a combination of carpet, laminate, tile, and vinyl. Some homeowners installed laminate in just the living room, others in living room and bedrooms, and everyone seems to have kept their kitchen tile. Most have painted their cabinets white, one stained them dark, and others left them alone.

You can really tell that I'm living in a builder-grade house, can't you! About half of the houses I looked at had almost identical floor plans. I am a bit neurotic about keeping up with the Jones's if only for the purpose of keeping our house in the same ballpark as our neighbors. Don't want to be the most expensive or the most dated!

If we do get laminate, should we keep the curved border of tile that separates the kitchen/dining area with the living room? Obviously removing the tile would be a lot of work, but I don't want it to 1) look weird, or 2) have future buyers think the "wood" floors look unfinished.
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glennsfc
10 years ago
The designer worked the angled border from the plane break at the wall to the left and brought the line out to make slightly more room for the 'dining area' it seems (I only see a curve at the last few inches before the direction change of the tile).

It looks as if you could extend that line to meet up with the other wall angle on the right. If you could do that, then you could eliminate the tiled 'walkway'...which seems a little odd to me. A simple angled tile section wall to wall (provided it begins and ends at an angled wall section I think will look fine. Doing that would require a precision cut of the tiled section...not impossible with the right tool.
JessicaW0614
Original Author
10 years ago
I never thought of that! The tiled walkway that juts out on the right is right in front of the back door. It certainly is cleaner to step into the house on tile rather than carpet, but if we have to keep the tile, getting rid of that little part and doing the rest as laminate floor is a good option! Thanks!