Engineered Wood vs Laminate

iwilldoitthistime

Hi there

can anyone give me some advice please.

I want a wood floor in my new home. My current house has laminate throughout the ground floor, and I would like something similar in my new home, but like the look of real wood, as opposed to the laminate.

I have a very messy toddler who is constantly dropping things on the floor (dry and wet:rolleyes: )

so the main question is - is wood hard wearing enough to cope with small children??

Advice appreciated!

ni4abargain

Hi

Try this - you might find it useful.

debbie42

That web site suggests that engineered wood can only be sanded once. This may be true for the cheaper variants, but thicker veneers can be sanded a few times (depending on thickness). The other advantage of engineered wood is that it can be more stable than "whole" wood.

I laid an engineered wood floor recently, and it was fairly straightforward. I can't comment on durability as it's only been down a couple of weeks! Mine was manufactured by Kahrs.

ronniesboot

I personally prefer the look of real wood (either engineered or otherwise) but only when its first laid - a good quality laminate is much harder wearing. Some like the slightly battered/worn look a wood floor gains over time so its personal preference but with little ones around I'd go laminate every time.

Fulham_Mark

I have some scratches and small dents on mine where the occaisional thing has been dropped. You don't notice them but I'd imagine a small child will drop and scratch much more often than me.

Yes it does look 10x better than laminate.

Was tougher to install than I expected. It was a "click system" but needed lots of muscle when hammering it all into place - I'm still waiting for one fingernail to grow back after a badly aimed whack.

I did like some of the more expensive laminates and was almost tempted to go for it. If you have nice furniture you may not notice the fact that the flooring is laminate and the place won't look like an argos catalogue.

iwilldoitthistime

thanks for the advice. I do like the real wood look - I think the shine on the laminate makes it even harder to keep clean because it shows smudges etc in the light.

Is real wood easy to care for, or do I need to do something other than sweep it? If it gets wet, does it damage (I do mop spills as soon as I spot them!) or does it dry out okay??

thanks again

misgrace

I'm with debbie on the Kahrs engineering flooring.:D

Here is a link of a company I used, that I posted a few months back for someone else under my name, read all the info, as I didnt have a clue either.
If you go into this site, there is a tip section, that tells you all you need to know about different floorings, and what underlay etc.

Its been a few months on now since I had the floor done, and I still stand by what I said in my previous posts, that I wish I had it done a long time ago, and its so clean, and keeps clean, it never looks dirty.

We also have those tiny little pads things under our furniture for when I do move some stuff to clean behind them, so the floor dont get scratched.

Honestly, its one of the best buys I have ever bought.:D

Oooops, got carried away, and nearly forgot the link.:rolleyes:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=375853

misgrace

BTW, I know how to upload now lol, here is a pic of the floor.


http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa165/ladydecorator/Olympusvarious057.jpg

iwilldoitthistime

thanks Misgrace

Your floor looks lovely - exactly like the type I want - i need approx 38 metres of it and Ive priced it today at one of our local floor retailers, and I can get it from about £28 per sqm upwards.

What kind of pads did you put on the furniture? Its just that my large sofa has scratched the laminate i currently have, and I dont want it to scratch the wood when I move!

thanks again

jcr16

we really wanted the proper wood floor instead of laminate. spoke to a friend who has it. and she say's it is really gorgeous. but it dents so easy and cost them a fortune. they wished they put down a laminate while the children were young and changed it later on. we costed out the wood flooring we wanted and it was over £500. but after finding out i'm preg again we've gone for laminate which is cost £120. and thought we will get the really nice stuff when children are older. as i'll only be worring the whole time.

misgrace

Hi, IWill, I just bought the felt type pads, you can buy them from B&Q, but I got mine from a little hardware shop.(much cheaper)

They normally come in a plastic type bag,and the ones we had were of different sizes, as we wanted to put them under the coffee table legs, cabinet etc.