Floors from Hell

[bobm]

Laminate flooring will not work for dogs once scratched nothing will fix ,do not use you will regret. Hardwood can be sanded and refinished. With animals tile is the way to go last forever cleans easy. The tile floor in my avatar still looks like it did when new almost 20 years ago. I did hire a professional to lay it, I cried when I got his bill but in long run think it worth it

I second NYboy's post. My neighbor installed a laminate floor for their entire house last Feb.. Two weeks later, their dishwasher leaked water onto their kitchen floor while they were shopping for the day. Came home and most of the kitchen laminate floor was all buckled and had to be replaced. Instead of thin plywood as an underlayment ( not recomended ) ... there is a new product ( very new and you may not be able to find it yet where you are at ) called " Mag O " magnesium oxide that comes in 3 x 5 foot sheets, white in color, light weight, very easy to work with and cuts very easily. Is waterproof as well as it will not burn. I used it as an underlayment in our kitchen and layed tile over it.

 

[Nyboy]

My husband and I decided a couple of months ago to replace the 25+ year old floors in our home with clean, new tile in anticipation of the baby. To save money, we decided to do it ourselves, since tiling is not all that hard and we have all the equipment.

The living room area went smooth as glass, we had it done in a week, working only at nights and when we had the time. The rest of the floors are free floating linoleum, so figured a couple more weeks to get that lifted up no problem, right?

Wrong.

The previous owner of the house had glued it together and to the floor, making it insanely difficult to get up. When we finally managed to pry that up, what did we find under there?! Another floor. This one nailed in, and who ever nailed it took a nail gun and went machine gun style across the floor, so each panel had a nail virtually every inch.

Days upon days of prying, cursing, and sweating later it comes up and...you guessed it. There's another floor under the floor, under the floor. At this point I had a bit of a tantrum. >_> At least this one was nailed properly, and I could crawl under the house and bang up the nails without too much trouble.

With just 3 weeks left before the baby is born, all of my husbands buds show up to help get the floor done AT LAST this weekend. Cheering wildly (cause I don't have to work on it if they are here) I toddle off to get snacks and drinks for the boys.

You know this doesn't end with the floors being finished.

I come back to find all the boys in full battle mode, holding cans of bee spray and looking VERY alarmed. Apparently one of the sub floor boards rotted, needing replaced. My father in law put his hammer through the floor, and out swarmed hundreds of hornets. Everyone got stung, including the dogs.

The whole day was spent replacing the one floor board and killing all the bees. I am still walking on sub floors and currently have no counters, no kitchen sink, and it's an easter egg hunt to find food/etc. x.x

3 weeks left, and I work for most of them. Sure hope we can get it done!!

(Also glad I missed the bees. Sorry boys!)

Love old houses how old is yours to have so many floors

 

[AMKuska]

The torn up house IS her nesting instinct.

You called it. I paid for these floors myself with my annual bonus because the idea of my baby touching those nasty floors learning to crawl appalled me.

and during the hottest part of the year... eek!

aside from that. if the floor was sound (note that a rotting board subfloor isn't a good sign and would need to be done no matter what, but you should be able to see that from below...)

anyways, often not a good idea to take up some old floors (especially if they contain asbestos), and many times it is much easier to level it off using underlayment (thin plywood) and then put tile on top of that, but this is a hard tile floor which i'd never do on a wood floor with joists underneath no matter what - flexible grout or not, i just don't trust any of it). that's just me... i'm very picky...

good luck.

i'd have put the cheapest laminate flooring i could find that had recommendations from people who have dogs/family...

We are using an underlayment. These huge sheets of thin concrete. I forget what they are called but they do a nifty job of leveling the floor and making an easy base for the tiles.

Laminate flooring will not work for dogs once scratched nothing will fix ,do not use you will regret. Hardwood can be sanded and refinished. With animals tile is the way to go last forever cleans easy. The tile floor in my avatar still looks like it did when new almost 20 years ago. I did hire a professional to lay it, I cried when I got his bill but in long run think it worth it

This, exactly. We have 4 dogs, and with the kids added on carpet/laminate is absolutely disgusting. This tile is supposed to be scratch/water/slip/stain resistant. It's made to look like normal wood.

Love old houses how old is yours to have so many floors

It isn't terribly old. It was built in 1970. We purchased it during the economic downturn when everyone was selling, and got a good deal on it. We probably wouldn't be able to buy a house now. The whole thing just seems to have been carelessly built.

 

[flowerbug]

dont you love how people just lay a floor upon another floor.....grrrrrr

often it's a horrible mess and takes a lot of work to remove. i've helped do schools, hospitals, gyms, and i'm a big fan of not making something worse than needed. i'm perhaps influenced in this regards by my past experience doing all this grunt work and having to haul all that stuff to the dumps... with more recent laws about asbestos you can be sure that a job i did 40yrs ago would now cost quite a bit more to get done.

so, um, good deal, hope your new floor works out well for you.

i would go with a cheap laminate because you can be sure that with both dogs and children that it will take a lot of damage even as tile. i know this too. but of course we can all agree to disagree as it is YOUR house and not mine. heeheehee... good deal there. hope it gets done and nobody gets hurt or too fried in this heat or you being due soon.

 

[Nyboy]

Stick to worms if you never had dogs you wouldnt know the abuse they give. Friend put down pergo far from cheap moved their couch put a long starch in floor no way to fix. I was thinking your house late 1800 1970s threw me. Your house might need a lot of work but at least your not living with your mother.

 

[Nyboy]

My office 20 years old about 50 dogs a day coming and going still looks like day it was laid,

 

[Nyboy]

Tip use colored grout glad I did. Floors are scrubbed with scrub brush every night.

 

[thistlebloom]

I'm a tile fan too. Easy to keep clean, looks good forever if you pick the right stuff.
Mine were laid by a professional too. A perfectionist craftsman who has been a tile contractor for nearly 50 years.
It's also pretty handy that I'm married to him so the labor was free!

 

[AMKuska]

Haha Nyboy, that's so true! As much as I love my mother, I am wildly glad to be on the other side of the country from her. I think in 1800s home would probably be better built. We keep finding so many shady things the more projects we take on in this home.

We actually did get a colored grout, and the tile finished in the living room is beautiful. Dogs have already puked on it (of course) and it was a breeze to wipe up. I won't miss the carpeting in there.

 

[flowerbug]

Haha Nyboy, that's so true! As much as I love my mother, I am wildly glad to be on the other side of the country from her. I think in 1800s home would probably be better built. We keep finding so many shady things the more projects we take on in this home.

We actually did get a colored grout, and the tile finished in the living room is beautiful. Dogs have already puked on it (of course) and it was a breeze to wipe up. I won't miss the carpeting in there.

we had shag carpeting in the kitchen of all places. what a horrible thing that was too often... it was blue. i'm having PTSD from this conversation now... lol