What kind of floor do you have?

[Tracylhl]

I'm not ready to go with dirt floors! We bought this house about 6 months ago and there is old, dirty, ugly, nasty, totally un-natural carpet. We want it out - yesterday. We live in Florida and have been told that "real" solid wood plank floors are a bad idea because of the high humidity. The subfloors are concrete downstairs and plywood upstairs. I really don't want carpet. I want wood. Real wood. If I can't have wide-plank pine floors (dreaming here) I want the closest, most natural thing that I can afford and that isn't too horribly difficult to install. We're looking at "engineered hardwood" right now. Not great, but in my opinion, better than laminate. I'm going for natural-looking, solid-feeling, something that doesn't absorb germs and nasty stuff that kids and animals track in. What other suggestions do you have or is that my best bet?

 

[ksalvagno]

We are installing Bamboo floors but we are in Ohio and I'm not sure if that would be ok in Florida. We are gluing down the floor and even putting glue between the planks due to the dogs and possible accidents.

 

[MorelCabin]

I never wanted laminant either...but we got it and I have to say i absolutely love it. Ours looks exactly like hardwood, no one who visits suspects that it's laminant. It isn't shiny so doesn't streak...and is great with the dogs nails. Our steps are hardwood and the dog leaves scratshes in those, but not on the floor!
Don't be too put off by laminant...I know I was for years, but really it is great. Just be careful of what you buy, bring samples home, step on it with your dirty shoes and see which one you can live with.

 

[elijahboy]

i have the "wood" floor. Usually called the floating floor. Its a toss up. I had carpet in the living room and it was an awful dark green (installed before I bought the house) and it always showed any tiny thing that was lighter than the carpet itself. I hated dragging out the vacc every 2 or 3 days. Since the wood floor was put in OMG the sweeping never stops. These dust bunnies truely multiply like rabbits. I think I sweep 3x a day. Wear a mask when sweeping if you dont sweep often because of all the dust flying around from sweeping will feel like you have spiders crawling on your face. However wood floors do not hold in smells and once swept and wiped you know its clean and theres not dirt still trapped like carpet. I do still have carpet in the bedrooms and will be replacing that Thursday with another color of carpet. I figured those areas should not get as much traffic because you have to go through the living room and hallway to get to the bedrooms.

When you do rip out all that carpet use it in the garden for the weeds.

My mom has the REAL wood floors and her house is constantly drafty but she has a crawl space. We live in South carolina and the humidity is similar to yours but not quite as bad. She has never had a problem with humidity even with a crawl space. I know 10 years she had to revarnish hers and it cost 800 and that was 10 years ago for a 25X30 room. You want have much upkeep with floating floor or snap floor. Just make sure you get the right person to do it if you do go with it. If they dont install it right and have a heavy hand they will chip the ends.

 

[lupinfarm]

Hardwoods from humid climates would work. Brazilian Cherry, Bamboo, and Zebra Wood are great.

I personally hate bamboo with a passion.

We're going with Birch solid hardwood upstairs, in our kitchen we're hoping to find someone to install linoleum, the bathroom we haven't decided on yet, and the laundry room its likely going to be cork.

My parents room is Maple solid hardwood.

We installed laminate on the main and top floor of our old house, and it looked good but sucked to clean. Its also difficult to install if you don't have a new, totally square, home.

I like *solid* hardwood for resale, we're always thinking about resale here. We could put down carpet, but solid hardwood is more saleable here in older homes. We have a crawl space, but our hardwood will be on the second floor of the house.

I hate tile throughout a house, I find it very cold and uninviting. Not to mention every single tiled house I've been in always has an annoying empty house echo. I think tile belongs in certain areas. Like I said, woods from humid countries are the way to go if you want hardwood. Zebra wood is fantastic, Brazilian cherry is beautiful, Bamboo I hate but it does look and can be stained in awesome shades.

 

[elijahboy]

dont dare glue a floor down in florida. My neighbor had her floors glued down by accident and in the summer time she had speed bumps through her entire house

 

[elijahboy]

the closest thing next to real wood would be 3/4 snap flooring

but i did see this flooring this guy was trying to sell me the other day and it was laminate i guess i have no clue what it was but the top looked like wood (real wood) and the bottom was rubber and i can imagine that must be easy on the feet but im sure its crazy expensive

 

[Organics North]

The stick on squares that were in our cabin started to stick to our feet and a bunch were missing..
I installed the cheapest laminate I could find.. $0.69 a square foot. Looks great, wears like iron even with 2 young boys.

We love it! Looks like wood wears like iron and was cheap!

Yes I have the oak for hardwood floors (I own a sawmill.) Just a huge amount of labor to make the boards and the cost of finishing is high.

Oh, Look for QUARTERSAWN wood. It does not expand and contract very much, so it can be good for a humid climate. Putting wood on concrete is not a good idea without a barrier. Possibly some ventilation so you do not get mold either.

Tile would work great in a "wet" enviroment.

ON

 

[valmom]

We have put in maple hardwood from a local sawmill. I think if I were in Florida or hot/humid instead of winter, I'd install tile of some sort. I tiled part of my last house and it is surprisingly easy. Nice and cool anyway.

 

[SKR8PN]

We have real hardwood and ceramic tile. For now the bathroom has linoleum, but will be changing VERY soon when I gut that room to the studs and redo it. It is going to have a 5ft shower and ceramic on the floor and up the walls.

Edited to add: Our floors also have hair.