Stained Cement or HW/Laminate Floors

I'm anxious to see what kind of responses you get here.  The problem I've wondered about with those locking hardwood planks, is if a dog pees on the floor, does the pee get inbetween the planks and cause a problem?  I'd think it would.  (If dog pee doesn't apply, think about a spilled liquid - soda, soup, whatever.)  So, I've decided to nix that.  Sealed concrete, I don't know.  Concrete itself is porous.  Same problem.  Tile - I've heard ammonia (dog pee?) can dissolve the grout. 
 
Concrete and tile is a female dog to stand barefoot.  I have tile and have to have shoes on to cook.  I used to like to go barefoot, but it's just too hard on the feet, hips and back
 
What I'm currently leaning toward (when I build that dream home) is cork flooring.  I still need to do some more research for some of the above questions.  Here's a site that was randomly googled:
[linkhttp://corkandfloor.com/]http://corkandfloor.com/[/link]
Just a thought.
 
 
 

Congratulations!  I probably should not be replying to this because i don't know what i'm talking about.  We have one room that does not have hardwood in it - and of course, that's the room my wife now wants hardwood in.  We're leaning towards the unfinished hardwood where they seal it once they've put it down because we heard "things" would go down the cracks with a pre-finished floor.  We looked at some flooring in a store and it was bowed.  We asked about it and the salesman said it was "cupped" because it was put down over cement.  We don't have cement so i didn't listen real closely, but i think he said you had to put down a moisture barrier and plywood under any wood product that you're putting over cement..  Good luck with your new home!

I DREAM of cork floors when I finally get to rehab our interior (we did exterior and windows with purchase).  It's so lovely and easy on your legs and a good renewable resource.  Bamboo, too.......

I have a friend who has the stained concrete floors and it is absolutely beautiful and no muss, no fuss to keep clean.  Her's is in sort of gold tones and has an acid wash to it and then a sealant.  It's very beautiful.  She's a decorator, so her whole house is breathtaking.

I have quite a bit of ceramic tile, and although I love the looks of it, it can be pretty cold in winter (feels good these days tho []).  I'd go with it again except for one major problem.  Our house is on a cement slab and where the foundation slab has a crack running thru it (nothing structurally wrong, it just happens), the tiles have cracked in the same pattern.  Trying to remove and replace ceramic tiles won't be easy by any means.

My DH and I both love hardwood floors, so if I had it to do over again, I might go that direction, but I'd check into the stained concrete too.

I always thought I'd love hardwood floors, but now that I have them in the kitchen and entry, I've changed my mind.  They look nice, but even the hardwood is capable of getting scratched easily, and having a 130lb dog trying to get traction on them made for deep gauges everywhere.  After 2 weeks in this house, we bought area rugs and runners, but damage still occurred in between them.  A scratched up hardwood floor looks good in an old, colonial home, but it looks lousy in a newer house!

I've seen the stained concrete and it is gorgeous!  Some of the coloring is beautiful - I've seen it in really warm, blended tones.  Everyone says is easy to clean.  Of course, the only way to keep it comfy for your tootsies in the winter is to put in radiant floor heating, which adds $$$$$$.  I'm not as fond of tile, mainly because the grout is a nuisance to keep clean.  Sweeping is harder, as the broom doesn't always get things out of the grout areas.

Bamboo and cork would be options I'd think of - I've seen them in tour homes, and they look awesome.  I don't know anyone in "real life" who has them, so I don't know about their upkeep.  Friends of ours just put in a vinyl flooring that looks so much like slate tile that it's amazing.  They have 2 dogs and a cat, and 2 teenagers.  So far, it's a breeze to keep clean, doesn't show dirt and scuffs, etc.  I think it looks really great.  Probably the cheapest of all the options.

I would say stain and score the cement floors if you can.  You can rent a scorer ... thats the thing that makes lines in it.  You can make any form of tiles, or a big box around the outside, diagonal lines.. anything and its beautiful.  You can pick any color stain you want and even mix 2 or 3 of them.  Ive seen one with a base color and big splotches of another and then little dots (like you flung a paintbrush) around to finish it off.  Of course all of the colors were similar.  I love these floors, they look so rich and nice and are VERY low maintenance![]  You can google it and see some ideas for the stain and scoring
 
Next choice, hardwood floors.  They are also beautiful, just a little more to worry about as far as them getting wet and possibly bowing out, scratched from the dogs nails... etc.
 
Ceramic tile is an option.
 
Lastly would be laminate....  They do make some really great ones now that look like real tiles... but if you can do one of the others it adds much more value to the home.   They also stay in better shape longer than laminate does.  In our first house DH and I redid all the floors with laminate made to look like stone.  They were individual sticky tiles and we did them ourselves to cut cost.  They did look great but I know in the corners you can kind of tell and not having any bubbles is hard.  Cleaning them wasnt so easy either because inbetween the tiles got dirty and it was stuck in there.  Of course all of this is only noticeable if you got down and looked hard... but still.... the others have more value and less care but laminate is great too if thats what finances permit.
 
Thats my [sm=2cents.gif]...   []

Oh dont go with the "pergo" type floors.  This is the hardwood look alike but its one big sheet.  Its okay if its already there I suppose but I wouldnt put it into any home.  Ive seen it bow up in lots of homes, it makes a very strange noise when you walk on it.  You can tell there are not real ridges in the "wood"...  lots of issue with it Ive seen.  And when showing a property the buyers tend to not like it much either.  Again, thats just my opinion.

Wow, I'm in home design (broadly speaking) and this is the first I've heard of stained cement floors! I'll have to read up on that. How easy are they to rip up and uninstall later?

I just want to say something nice about laminate...we put a tile look alike in our kitchen 5 years ago and are very happy with it.  I think to incur water damage, it would have to be a lot of water.  I use a steam cleaner, and have had no problems.  I would go with the highest quality you can, though, and not from a home improvement store.

Think about when you have kids....would you rather drop the baby on concrete, have the cruising baby fall off the couch onto concrete or have your crazy toddler faceplant on concrete....or some other flooring? That's what tempered our decisions in flooring....because all of the above DID happen...and happen to most people with kids.

We put down the laminate "wood" strips in our kitchen about 8 or 9 years ago and we've been very happy with it.  It still looks like it's brand new.  If part of the flooring is somehow damaged, then the individual strips can be replaced.  But in all these years we've not needed to do that, and believe me plenty of stuff has been spilled and dropped on the floor.  It's very resilient.  I can't recall the brand off-hand, but will try to find out if you want more info.  Here's a photo: 
 

I wonder about maybe asking a realtor which adds the most value to the house.  I would think hardwood floors would add far more value than stained concrete, but WTF do I know?
 
Just a thought.

We put oak in a new room, ran it up into the entry, dining room and kitchen. I really like it but ... an old refrigerator leaked on it and from what I've been able to find out we can't have it repaired because it's 16 years old and nothing today will match.  So it looks like in order to clean up the mess that's mainly around the refrigerator and dishwasher, I may have to replace 700 sq. ft. of oak.

Joyce

We have tile in our house and it looks very nice.  But the groute is flaking in some places, it's cold on the feet (feels good in summer!) and you have to be careful what you wash it with.  We vacuum so everything comes up out of the cracks.  However, I would go for a high quality laminate, like in the photo below.  No water worries, no scratch worries, hides fur and spilled stuff.  I LOVED this laminate flooring and it's still made.  We found it at flooring place, not Lowe's or HD or Menard's.