Not in my experience. Depends a bit on how much the dogs shed and how much they bring in from outside. If you make sure spills are picked up promptly and you put in a couple of mats to pick up the grit brought in from outdoors, it should require no more than an occasional go-over with one of those staticky cling-type sweepers or a vacuuming.

You might want to consult the Flooring Forum. They know more about flooring than the rest of us! :)

My laminate has been easy to care for, but I do not have it installed in the kitchen. Everywhere that there wasn't tile I installed laminate. Bathrooms, entryway, kitchen, laundry room had tile. Dining, living, bedrooms, closets, hallways have laminate. The biggest issue with having laminate in the kitchen would be moisture. You have to mop up wet spills promptly or water can penetrate and cause the boards to swell.

I think a glued laminate might be better than a click-together in a kitchen in terms of keeping water from penetrating the seams.

I try not to wear shoes in the house (I do not always succeed). I vacuum and occasionally damp mop. I really like the laminate because I can get it clean. With carpet, it is never clean, no matter how much you vacuum. I do have a few (unnoticeable to anyone but me) scratches in the laminate.

I did the laminate after painting but before moving into the house and I am 100% glad I made that decision!

Jean Marie

I have around 1,500 square feet of laminate on our main floor. I would not want it in the kitchen. With a family of six, we have lots and lots of spills there. Ours is glued, even though it was the clickable kind. The manufacturer stated it would do better with glue. We have the top of the Wilsonart line, in a matt finish. I chose this because they had stair treads and we have 30 stairs which connect to this flooring.

It fits how we live very well. We are a shoe on house, the kids roller skate in the house, balls are always bouncing, etc. I have to do daily sweeping, which I've found very simple to do. I use my swiffer every morning and go over the entire thing. Takes all of two minutes. If I ignore it for several days it takes me an hour and a vacuum to get all of the grit and hair up. So a little bit everyday really makes it easy. I've found a microfiber cloth with just plain water cleans mine the best. Very easy and I need to mop very infrequently. Even dried spills come right up with the microfiber.

Once I got use to the change in cleaning routine, I've been very happy with it. I like how it looks and cleans after always having had carpet for the last 20 years. But we sound like a herd of elephants.

Gloria

I'm sneaking in here from the sewing forum. Our laminate has not held up very well. We have it in the kitchen and dining room. Even though we glued it (it is the locking kind), we have water damage from when the dishwasher leaked. What bothers me more, though, is all the dings from dropping things on it - such as knives, pans, cans, staplers, and anything else that can be found in the kitchen that has been dropped or fallen. We also have our computer in the dining room, and we damaged the floor where the computer chair was. We ended up putting a small piece of carpet down for the chair.

As far as cleaning it, I either use plain water or vinegar to clean it. Since we tend to be a messy family, always spilling something, I tend to mostly use the vinegar.

I have had laminate in my kitchen for about 5 years. I have a light maple color and 2 cats. It looks just like it did the day it was installed. I sweep with a microfiber cloth and could not be happier with it.

Our laminate has held up amazingly well. We're on year 2 in most rooms, year 1 in others. We've got about 1300 sq ft of laminate. The whole first floor (including kitchen and bathroom) and the kids play room. We've done all sorts of crazy things to our floor and they just keep on kicking! We've had a few problems that have swelled the floors a little bit (like....a few floods in the kitchen cause I'm an idiot LOL) but suprisingly in a few weeks time even tiny little swells that I thought would be permanant are completely gone.

We have Costco Harmonics laminate BTW.