My wife and I want to purchase relatively inexpensive hardwood for our home. We plan to move in a couple of years, but want to keep the property for rental since that has good prospects as we live near Fort Bragg.

I want to be able to refinish the floors as needed which takes laminate out of the picture. I have the labor covered, but am looking for a deal on the flooring. I am hoping to spend 3500 or less on the flooring and supplies for about 900 sq. ft.

Anyone have some suggestions? We checked lumber liquidators already and found the perfect fit, but they did not have it in stock. I was hoping to start in the next couple of weeks.

3/4/2011 10:33:10 AM

do you want finished, unfinished?

oak, cherry, pine ?

I can't remember the name of the place I got mine from, but it was unfinished oak for just over $1/sqft.

3/6/2011 3:32:12 PM

if you're passing through raleigh check out Surplus Warehouse. I got some nice prefinished hardwood floor there for los $3s /sqf

3/6/2011 7:27:36 PM

Just went by a friend's house that they just bought and are in the process of pretty much remodeling (re-do ceiling, cabinets, countertops, hardwood floors everywhere, and much much more).

House is not that big, maybe 1,200 sq ft...and they spent $1,500 on just glue for the hardwood floors...GLUE!!!. I didn't have the hear to ask them what the floors cost, but they made it sound like it was a fortune for something that wasn't even top of the line (bamboo).

Glad I didn't have to do that.

3/6/2011 8:11:23 PM

Are you hoping to install yourself? If so you'd be doing a great service by getting prefinished. Bellawood is primo, but it ain't cheap.

Once you have your lumber purchased you're basically down to renting the equipment (you'll want to get the pneumatic stuff - the spring loaded is crap) and labor. Lumber liquidators is really cheap - they're the big lots of the lumber world. There's a small place near Clinton that does this too, but it's hard to come by quantity of nice stuff. There are a billion contractors doing the same thing.

You'll also want to purchase decent looking baseboards or 1/4 round. It makes it a lot easier to just face nail the edges in and cover it with baseboard.

3/6/2011 9:46:30 PM

are they on a slab? If they are remodeling I would strongly doubt it.

If they're not on a slab, they'd be installing the floor on top of subflooring, which should be nailed down. Glue can be used in tricky areas or where there is some warping of either the subfloor or the planks, but the fact that they spent that much on glue is a head scratcher.

3/6/2011 9:49:42 PM

sounds like somebody got scammed

3/6/2011 11:06:01 PM

^^I'm definitely no expert, but it looked like slab. They had to pull up carpet beforehand.

3/7/2011 7:02:31 AM

damn, gluing hardwoods is f'n fail city.

3/7/2011 7:32:56 AM

Thread is relevant to my interests. My wife and I didn't end up putting hardwoods down last year because we had to spend some money on the yard.

We are looking at nail down hardwoods. The house is on a crawl space foundation so I am assuming it is a plywood subfloor (hopefully not whatever the newer cheaper stuff is that some places are using). We are definitely going to do prefinished and we are thinking of trying to install it ourselves, with help from some family and friends of course. Hoping to get the wood itself for <$4/ft²

The plan right now is to rent some pneumatic nailers and I think we have the rest of the tools we would need.

I have a couple questions:

1) What kind of underlayment would people in here recommend who have done a similar installation?

2) The subfloor is definitely not level in a few places in the kitchen; in fact it sort of "dips" a little bit in 3 different spots in the house. The aren't huge surface areas and it's not very deep dips but noticeable to me with bare feet on the vinyl.

I doubt there is any problem with rotting of floor joists or something since the house isn't that old, passed inspection fine (the guy was fairly thorough too) with a dry crawl space and no signs of rotting, and is and always has been under a termite bond.

What else could this be? Warping in the subfloor? I guess we'll find out whenever we rip up the vinyl to lay hardwood at some point but I'm just hoping it is something easily repairable.

3/7/2011 10:57:07 AM

we ended up buying from lumber liquidators. My father in-law installs flooring and does other home renovations for a living; thus, we have a deal on the labor. We decided upon the Bella Brazilian Cherry (I think, whatever the wife picked out). Obviously a little over budget, but better quality than we were originally planning on per direction of my father in-law.

We got the 3/4" thickness 3 inch wide planks. Setting it up in the house today to "climatize" for a few days before installing it. Ready to get it in and move on with life! I have read some reviews on Bella online, and a lot of them are negative. The common theme I seem to be seeing though is that the people with bad reviews of the wood seem to have had someone from LL come install it.

Anyone else now much about the installation of the wood. It wood stand to reason to me that the longevity of the flooring as a direct correlation to the install be done wright..safe to say?

3/7/2011 12:36:18 PM

wow, got a few challenges with sentence construction there?

Installation is not difficult, it's just labor intensive. As long as you keep moisture away (install above grade and have a good vapor barrier) longevity has more do to with what's happening on top (keeping it clean, high traffic, dogs, high heels, etc.) than the installation. I wouldn't worry about that too much, unless the people installing it are drunk, high, or mentally retarded. I've done it three times, and it doesn't take much skill-- just sweat.

3/7/2011 12:52:11 PM

i am thinking about replacing carpet for hardwoods at some point too. what should we know if we have a medium-sized dog that likes to run through the house. i'm really worried about getting scratch marks all through the house, not really sure if it's possible to get wood floors that will resist this, and if so, what do i need to look for?

3/7/2011 1:12:34 PM

area rugs are your friend; also, the finish is more important regarding scratches instead of the type of wood. assuming you're using pre-finished, most will be fairly scratch resistant. unless your dog is doing laps around the house all day, you shouldn't be too concerned with that.

3/7/2011 1:42:45 PM

Also, regularly getting your dog's claws ground can help a lot too. We are/were slightly worried about hardwoods with dogs as well but we have a smaller dog and we've noticed that on the foyer hardwood we have now, she doesn't hardly do any damage when we keep her claws trimmed/ground even though she likes to run in circles and such a lot. It's like $11 at PetSmart and we do it once every 4-6 weeks (we've been doing it now to make a habit of it even before we get the hardwoods).

From the people I have talked to with dogs + hardwoods, there seems to be a common consensus that this is well worth it.

[Edited on March 7, 2011 at 2:05 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2011 2:04:40 PM

Quote :

"i am thinking about replacing carpet for hardwoods at some point too. what should we know if we have a medium-sized dog that likes to run through the house. i'm really worried about getting scratch marks all through the house, not really sure if it's possible to get wood floors that will resist this, and if so, what do i need to look for?"

If you have animals I'd put down regular unfinished and then have someone sand and finish it for you (or just pay them to do the whole thing.) The poly coating they put on is impact resistant and waterproof. If the dog pees or who knows what else you just wipe it up. With prefinish you still have the tiny gaps between each piece of wood that the pee can soak through into the subfloor and your house will forever smell like dog piss.

This rule also applies to kitchens. Unless you want to apply glue in front of the dish washer and sink you'll want to put down unfinished and have they apply poly.

Unfinished also offers a lot more options in terms of repair if there's ever serious damage to it. It's a ton easier to work with in those situations because you can beat and pry without worrying about how it looks - just putty and fill in later. With the prefinish you have to be careful not to mar it up.

3/7/2011 2:32:59 PM

Quote :

"i'm really worried about getting scratch marks all through the house, not really sure if it's possible to get wood floors that will resist this, and if so, what do i need to look for?"

Laminate flooring like pergo gives you the attractiveness of hardwoods, but is pretty much scratchproof. that's one option. Lots of people hate the idea simply because it's not hardwood.

the engineered hardwood that most newer houses come with and that a lot of people install due to affordability will scratch if you drop a hard booger on it. it's what came with our house, and I gave up quickly on our dogs not scratching them all to hell. Honestly it looks a lot worse when those first scratches are present. After a few years, when the scratches are more uniform, it actually looks fine, just weathered. Generally, you can only refinish them once or twice.

True hardwood planks (usually 3/4" thick) are going to be much more scratch resistant if they are finished after installation. Usually, you'll install the unfinished planks, stain, and then put several coats of polyurethane over it. The polyurethane should be scratch resistant enough for a medium sized dog. If you get the pre-finished variety, the stain/topcoat will be a lot more prone to scratches and cosmetic damage, but they can be refinished more times than you'll ever need.

[Edited on March 7, 2011 at 2:57 PM. Reason : my bad, some of the posts above covered this, i should have read other posts before replying]

3/7/2011 2:56:25 PM