GoForGin,
Quote:
Any idea on what a good price estimate would be? 1,200 sq ft condo.
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Several years ago we, coincidently while watching the Kentucky Derby, we discovered that water had been leaking through the walls from a broken hose bib. We decided to do hard wood as a replacement.
Actually, we chose a laminate.
At the time we had a friend in the hardwood flooring business. (He's still in the business, we just aren't friends any more. LOL)
This is what he told me:
1. The key to getting good laminate is the thickness. You want a minimum of 8mm. We got 11mm. I guess now there is 12mm out there.
2. If you have dogs, do not waste your money on real wood. They will scratch the hell out of it just by walking on it.
3. Look for a
Lumber Liquidators and you can find some great bargains.
Our experience from shopping around is that you cannot get this price in a bundled deal. If you go to a "Flooring store" the materials will be amazingly jacked up in price. I mean, you might pay 3 times what we did for 4mm stuff!
If you go to a Lumber Liquidator, they will have some independent installers they can recommend.
Our bottom floor is around 1,600 sq. feet (counting kitchen, bathroom and laundry room.) We put textured linoleum tiles in those 3 areas, which was much more expensive than the hard wood.
We paid $2,500 for installation and $3,200 for the materials.
Thus, net cost was about $3.56 per sq. foot, installed.
Now, over 6 years later, the floor still looks like new, even with 2 dogs.
Couple of other things we learned:
*There are some laminates that come with soundproofing on the back so that you do not have to purchase padding!
*Do not waste your money on that Pergo-type crap. It will sound like you are walking across the Boston Garden with every step. Ours is inter-locking. That makes installation easier.
*You should get an experienced installer. If you are fortunate, you can get one that will let you help and cut his cost that way. Without the experience, your corners and odd-size cuts could wind up looking like real crap. Our guy was a real master at this. It showed in the couple of places that really mattered.
*Baseboards will have to be adjusted because there will be a gap below. Home Depot has some little triangular strips that fit perfectly for next to nothing compared to buying the ones at the hardwood store. I mean, like 10% of the cost.
*Big one: If you can, get the installer BEFORE you get the materials! He can help you decide what is good stuff and what isn't.
The comment above about Lumber Liquidators CAN be true. But the truth is, standard or non-standard size does not really matter. You are just going to use the one size anyway.
Closing: Since we did our floors, three of our friends liked ours so much that they have done their floors with exactly the same materials as us.