Author Topic: Mustachian Flooring?  (Read 3359 times)

sjc0816

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Mustachian Flooring?
« on: April 16, 2018, 10:18:48 AM »
Our house was built in 1995. On our main level, the previous owners installed hardwood floors in the entry, kitchen and great room. It's not my style of hardwood (yellow oak) but it's decent flooring. Our living and dining rooms (connected) still have the original WHITE carpet. It's disgusting and needs to go. The same carpet goes up our staircase in the entry and up to the upstairs landing.

My dream would be to rip out ALL of the flooring and install brand new manufactured hardwood...or something really sturdy and low-maintenance....but we cannot afford this. So our options are:

1) Replace the carpet with a similar hardwood...and have the entire main floor refinished and stained a different color...so they match. Then replace the staircase and landing with new carpet. I am fairly certain we cannot afford this either but it's worth looking into.

2) Replace the carpet with a medium-quality non-white carpet.

We have kids and a dog. So the flooring really takes a beating. The white carpet absolutely has to go. We can't clean it anymore...it's in bad shape.

Am I leaving out any affordable options? My only pre-requisite is that I'm not willing to have a non-carpet flooring that doesn't match the rest of the house. Our home is a very open concept...so it's either matching floor all around or carpet/hardwood combination.

seattlecyclone

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2018, 10:32:13 AM »
Am I leaving out any affordable options? My only pre-requisite is that I'm not willing to have a non-carpet flooring that doesn't match the rest of the house. Our home is a very open concept...so it's either matching floor all around or carpet/hardwood combination.

Have you considered tile for the currently carpeted part? I agree that two slightly different wood-like products might look strange next to each other, but you could maybe get a tile that would be a sufficient contrast (as the carpet currently is) so as not to look bad.

sjc0816

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2018, 10:34:29 AM »
Am I leaving out any affordable options? My only pre-requisite is that I'm not willing to have a non-carpet flooring that doesn't match the rest of the house. Our home is a very open concept...so it's either matching floor all around or carpet/hardwood combination.

Have you considered tile for the currently carpeted part? I agree that two slightly different wood-like products might look strange next to each other, but you could maybe get a tile that would be a sufficient contrast (as the carpet currently is) so as not to look bad.

I do not like the look of any two different types of hard flooring next to each other. Carpet is different...for some reason. I know it might sound odd.

lbmustache

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2018, 10:40:16 AM »
Option 1. Refinishing will likely lighten them up a bit, and you can stain darker if you'd like.

Carpet is just awful to me and I can't image it with kids and a dog. Hard floors forever!

sjc0816

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2018, 10:50:33 AM »
The other issue that I am having is the undertaking that would be re-finishing the whole main floor. I'm assuming we'd have to move every bit of furniture out of the house? We are crazy busy with work and our kids' schedules....I just cannot wrap my brain around how we would get this done. But I'm listening!

seattlecyclone

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #5 on: April 16, 2018, 10:56:27 AM »
The other issue that I am having is the undertaking that would be re-finishing the whole main floor. I'm assuming we'd have to move every bit of furniture out of the house? We are crazy busy with work and our kids' schedules....I just cannot wrap my brain around how we would get this done. But I'm listening!

Yeah, the furniture would have to leave the area being refinished. In addition the chemicals used in refinishing can be hazardous to breathe, so you'll probably want to vacate the premises during the work and a few days afterward while everything airs out. We bought a house last year and refinishing the floors was the one thing we made sure to do before moving in. Probably best to schedule this work around your next family vacation.

SunnyDays

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2018, 02:28:40 PM »
What about vinyl plank flooring?  Comes in a range of colours and can be put on stairs too.  Because it's planks, you could do part of an area at a time and just move part of the furniture at a time too.  Also cheaper than hardwood and very durable.  You could either stain the existing wood floors in another colour and choose the vinyl to match, or I suppose you could put vinyl over the hardwood if you want.  (I've had hardwood, and actually prefer carpet to that, as dogs do scratch up the finish significantly.  Also, no shrinking and creaking over time.)

FIRE Artist

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #7 on: April 16, 2018, 03:11:45 PM »
You may find that tearing up the existing hardwood and redoing the entire main floor in a new wood selection is actually cheaper than having the old wood refinished to match the new wood.  I have a friend who went through this just last year, and ended up doing the entire floor.  It is the labor cost that kills it, it is way cheaper to lay hardwood than refinish it.  Unless of course you intend to do the work yourself.

And don't underestimate the pain in the ass of having to move out of your house with dog in tow, for the duration of the refinishing.  Should not have to move out for replacing the flooring. 

Carrie

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2018, 03:20:01 PM »
I am probably going to be doing this in our house next year. I'm planning to look at bamboo - clicks together should be diy.  Heart pine seems to be popular right now, but I like the durability of bamboo.
In the meantime,  we bought inexpensive commercial grade carpet tile (Interface) directly - we got the seconds/way discounted,  and put it everywhere we had old carpet while we figure out the hard floor. It's been good because we can replace individual tiles as needed (dog puke, etc).


the_fixer

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #9 on: April 17, 2018, 09:09:48 AM »
Solid Oak flooring has been used for a long time they should be able to match the size and type of oak and blend it in with the old floor, then sand, stain and finish the floor.

You can go with different colors of stain to suit your taste.

The nice thing about the solid wood products is that they can be refinished many times and will outlive you and service the next generation as well.

I would say that is more mustachian than ripping it out, and replacing it with a non sustainable product.

That or live with the hardwood that you have and put tile in the other areas I guess.



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inline five

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #10 on: April 17, 2018, 11:04:30 AM »
I am probably going to be doing this in our house next year. I'm planning to look at bamboo - clicks together should be diy.  Heart pine seems to be popular right now, but I like the durability of bamboo.
In the meantime,  we bought inexpensive commercial grade carpet tile (Interface) directly - we got the seconds/way discounted,  and put it everywhere we had old carpet while we figure out the hard floor. It's been good because we can replace individual tiles as needed (dog puke, etc).
Bamboo is horrible it is expensive and can't be refinished

Morning Glory

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #11 on: April 17, 2018, 11:43:39 AM »
We ripped out the white carpet in our living/dining room and put in solid hickory (we did it ourselves, a moderate difficulty diy project). Our kitchen has engineered oak, there is a threshold in the doorway between the two and it doesn't look bad.
I have had bamboo in a previous house. It was cheap and easy to install ( just used a Brad nailer instead of the flooring nailer), but it scratches easily so not a good choice with kids and pets.

J Boogie

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #12 on: April 17, 2018, 02:03:39 PM »
You may find that tearing up the existing hardwood and redoing the entire main floor in a new wood selection is actually cheaper than having the old wood refinished to match the new wood.  I have a friend who went through this just last year, and ended up doing the entire floor.  It is the labor cost that kills it, it is way cheaper to lay hardwood than refinish it.  Unless of course you intend to do the work yourself.

And don't underestimate the pain in the ass of having to move out of your house with dog in tow, for the duration of the refinishing.  Should not have to move out for replacing the flooring.

You still have to sand hardwood floors once you install them - unless you go with prefinished and you like the look of the bevels on pre-finished hardwood floors. I personally can't stand the beveled edges as they clash with any historic details of a room, but then again this a 1995 house so it probably doesn't matter.

I refinished my hardwood floors and it is a lot of work and it does raise a ton of dust (unless you've got the best of the best in there with their cutting edge dust collection).

If your home is similar to other suburban style 1995 homes with 3.5" trim, prefinished is probably good. But for really modern or really historic homes I would refinish.

mstache67

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #13 on: April 18, 2018, 09:31:12 AM »
We just put the same wood plank porcelain in throughout the whole house, including bathrooms and kitchen and stairs. It's a wood-look porcelain. There's a huge variety of coloring options available in this material now. To me it looked nicer and more real than vinyl or laminate wood, and is obviously infinitely hardier than real wood. I hate breaking up stairs and bathrooms with different flooring because it makes the house feel choppy and smaller, and am very happy with the way it turned out.

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mstache67

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2018, 09:34:04 AM »
I am probably going to be doing this in our house next year. I'm planning to look at bamboo - clicks together should be diy.  Heart pine seems to be popular right now, but I like the durability of bamboo.
In the meantime,  we bought inexpensive commercial grade carpet tile (Interface) directly - we got the seconds/way discounted,  and put it everywhere we had old carpet while we figure out the hard floor. It's been good because we can replace individual tiles as needed (dog puke, etc).
Bamboo is horrible it is expensive and can't be refinished
I think bamboo being expensive depends where you're looking, where I shopped bamboo was one of the lowest priced options.

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mstache67

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Re: Mustachian Flooring?
« Reply #15 on: April 18, 2018, 09:39:33 AM »
Our house was built in 1995. On our main level, the previous owners installed hardwood floors in the entry, kitchen and great room. It's not my style of hardwood (yellow oak) but it's decent flooring. Our living and dining rooms (connected) still have the original WHITE carpet. It's disgusting and needs to go. The same carpet goes up our staircase in the entry and up to the upstairs landing.

My dream would be to rip out ALL of the flooring and install brand new manufactured hardwood...or something really sturdy and low-maintenance....but we cannot afford this. So our options are:

1) Replace the carpet with a similar hardwood...and have the entire main floor refinished and stained a different color...so they match. Then replace the staircase and landing with new carpet. I am fairly certain we cannot afford this either but it's worth looking into.

2) Replace the carpet with a medium-quality non-white carpet.

We have kids and a dog. So the flooring really takes a beating. The white carpet absolutely has to go. We can't clean it anymore...it's in bad shape.

Am I leaving out any affordable options? My only pre-requisite is that I'm not willing to have a non-carpet flooring that doesn't match the rest of the house. Our home is a very open concept...so it's either matching floor all around or carpet/hardwood combination.
I forgot to ask what climate you live in and if you have a pool. If you have kids and dogs coming in and out of the house especially with a pool I would 110% recommend the wood plank porcelain. It is great for humid or hot climates too as it feels cooler than real wood or laminate.

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