New guy

[TNGuy]

Hello and thanks for allowing me on board!

I'm starting to upgrade the inside of our house after retiring 11 years ago and moving to middle Tennessee. The house was built in 2007 and I started with upgrading the outside but now its time for the inside. The 1st floor has .4" laminate wood flooring throughout except for the bedrooms where carpet was used. The second floor has all carpet. The carpet need replacing now but I'm thinking of using something other than carpet but I'm not that familiar with all the options. The laminate wood flooring has a few areas that were damaged by either water or gouging so I also need to figure out what to do about that. So I started researching and stumbled across this forum and figured this is the right place to start and learn.

I have noticed LVP flooring and started researching this but like I mentioned I don't know all the options. I also don't know the best way to purchase, local Lowes or online, but I did run across flooringinc.com which seems to have a lot of options and information.

Thanks
Don

 

[C.J.]

Welcome to the club, neighbor. Middle Tennessee, you anywhere near where the tornado hit? It was a tornado, right. Shows how much I pay attention to the news.

 

[TNGuy]

Welcome to the club, neighbor. Middle Tennessee, you anywhere near where the tornado hit? It was a tornado, right. Shows how much I pay attention to the news.

Thanks!

It was a tornado, the worst of it was near Clarksville which is northwest of Nashville near the Kentucky border. I'm further east about an hour or so from Nashville.

 

[C.J.]

Went to Ft. Campbell a few years ago to visit my son, big place. I’m one state over to the East but we seriously considered Tennessee because you guys have no state income tax. Weather is prolly about the same, you get used to it.

 

[Floorist]

Welcome to the forum. I am just an old carpet and vinyl guy, but we have some guys on here who know about all flooring.

 

[TNGuy]

Went to Ft. Campbell a few years ago to visit my son, big place. I’m one state over to the East but we seriously considered Tennessee because you guys have no state income tax. Weather is prolly about the same, you get used to it.

When we scouted for a retirement location we looked everywhere and narrowed down to a few states including the Carolinas. Looked for the sweet spot where the weather was not too cold and not too hot/humid. Also wanted a more rural area. We came from SoCal so we needed and wanted the opposite for retirement and now we love it here.

 

[C.J.]

Sounds about right.

 

[Incognito]

Welcome.

I'd stick with carpet upstairs in the bedrooms and immediate areas like walkways at least for the acoustic and insulation benefits, Downstairs It'd depend on so many other factors like pets, kids, type of foot traffic (coming in off dirt, gravel or asphalt isn't friendly to wood floors or even LVT so much.

The plastic is trendy because of the costs of real wood. I cant think of any good reasons to buy plastic flooring if you can afford tile/stone/wood.

 

[Floorist]

Just remember, hard surface flooring makes bad backs and bad feet worse.

 

[TNGuy]

Just remember, hard surface flooring makes bad backs and bad feet worse.

Good to know

 

[C.J.]

Get the floor you want. If you’re feet n back hurt then go visit the Good Feet store and pick you up some arch supports cus your feet and back don't just hurt while you’re at home do they.

 

[TNGuy]

Welcome.

I'd stick with carpet upstairs in the bedrooms and immediate areas like walkways at least for the acoustic and insulation benefits, Downstairs It'd depend on so many other factors like pets, kids, type of foot traffic (coming in off dirt, gravel or asphalt isn't friendly to wood floors or even LVT so much.

The plastic is trendy because of the costs of real wood. I cant think of any good reasons to buy plastic flooring if you can afford tile/stone/wood.

Thanks!

The existing ~1,800sf of laminate wood flooring on the 1st floor looks great for the most part but there are areas where water damage and gouging has occurred from the original home owner which was an elderly couple with a dog. It's only 15 years old and I don't know if todays laminate wood flooring holds up much better but if I invest in the more expensive flooring will it last much longer than the newer less expensive LVP?

I have a basement so I have a wood floor system that makes all kinds of noise when walking on the laminate wood flooring but I don't know if the noise is from the floor joists or the laminate wood flooring or both but I would like a flooring material that makes the least noise.

 

[Incognito]

Thanks!

The existing ~1,800sf of laminate wood flooring on the 1st floor looks great for the most part but there are areas where water damage and gouging has occurred from the original home owner which was an elderly couple with a dog. It's only 15 years old and I don't know if todays laminate wood flooring holds up much better but if I invest in the more expensive flooring will it last much longer than the newer less expensive LVP?

I have a basement so I have a wood floor system that makes all kinds of noise when walking on the laminate wood flooring but I don't know if the noise is from the floor joists or the laminate wood flooring or both but I would like a flooring material that makes the least noise.

You certainly can buy premium "laminate" or LVT as good and better than what was around 15 years ago. I dont care for laminate as every one I've handled or walked on has that horrible hollow sound. Nailed down or glued down solid wood is my preference. Next choices would be tile or stone. LVT, glued down will LOOK pretty much the same as tile or real wood to the untrained eye and would be a third on my list. Laminated products also look fairly authentic. I rank them last. The only appeal being price.

Solid wood, stone, porcelain or ceramic tile or LVT will hold up as well as your laminate comparing apples to apples as far as good/better/best quality options. 1800' is a very large area to cover with a really good quality flooring so I certainly understand why people go with imitation, plastic materials. I put wood, porcelain and carpet in my first house over the 27 year. When I bought this house in 2016 it just got new carpet throughout excepting the world's cheapest Home Depot laminate in the kitchen and laundry. That was also newly installed. So fairly soon both the carpet and laminate will be replace. It's a total of 1400' all on a pier and beam foundation. So as I'm running through all of the above pros and cons myself as I type. We're retired on fixed incomes so imported marble from Italy is probably out of the question.

 

[TNGuy]

You certainly can buy premium "laminate" or LVT as good and better than what was around 15 years ago. I dont care for laminate as every one I've handled or walked on has that horrible hollow sound. Nailed down or glued down solid wood is my preference. Next choices would be tile or stone. LVT, glued down will LOOK pretty much the same as tile or real wood to the untrained eye and would be a third on my list. Laminated products also look fairly authentic. I rank them last. The only appeal being price.

Solid wood, stone, porcelain or ceramic tile or LVT will hold up as well as your laminate comparing apples to apples as far as good/better/best quality options. 1800' is a very large area to cover with a really good quality flooring so I certainly understand why people go with imitation, plastic materials. I put wood, porcelain and carpet in my first house over the 27 year. When I bought this house in 2016 it just got new carpet throughout excepting the world's cheapest Home Depot laminate in the kitchen and laundry. That was also newly installed. So fairly soon both the carpet and laminate will be replace. It's a total of 1400' all on a pier and beam foundation. So as I'm running through all of the above pros and cons myself as I type. We're retired on fixed incomes so imported marble from Italy is probably out of the question.

Thanks for the input!

I was not familiar with a pier and beam foundation, so I had to look it up, interesting design and in Los Angeles. I never noticed this when I lived in SoCal.