carpet or laminate

iammumtoone

I am unsure whether to replace my living/dinning room carpet with another carpet or laminate?


I know laminate has a bad reputation but is it really that bad? I am not looking to sell but still want to make my home look nice, this is a one off expense that needs to last.


The carpet I have at the moment is wrecked I have a child that is extremely clumsy drinks/food etc get spilt most days. I am also looking to get a cat in the near future.


Is laminate hard-wearing does it scratch easily? If I do decide to go down the laminate route what questions should I be asking the fitter/seller?


Wood is not an option I can't afford it and couldn't spare the time to look after it properly.



Thanks

Fran_Klee

It's purely personal preference.
Laminate comes in varying qualities just the same as carpet; a good quality fitted well of either will stay looking good and last for many years.
My lounge laminate is 15 years plus but you would never know that looking at it, and it gets heavy traffic too due to the room's layout.

savemoney

Laminate is fine had mine down over 13 years and still looks good. We now have laminate all down stairs accept understairs wc and two bedrooms upstairs. We have cats too yes there is some scratches but its faired much better than our carpets which are newer

stueyhants

Have you considered vinyl planks. We’ve just laid close to 100 sq metres and happy. We used a brand called quick step. Probably around £25m so more expensive than laminate but cheaper than real wood.

Silvertabby

Wood doesn't take that much looking after, as long as it is given a good coat of wax oil (dries dry) on fitting. Ours is 3 years old now, and still looks as good as the day it was fitted, despite a number of fur balls and a couple of 'other' accidents (elderly puss). Don't have children, though.

The big advantage of wood over laminate (apart from the fact that wood looks so much better) is that in the event of a scratch etc you can gently sand down the wood and re-seal with wax oil. Can't do that with laminate.

jennifernil

stueyhants wrote: »

Have you considered vinyl planks. We’ve just laid close to 100 sq metres and happy. We used a brand called quick step. Probably around £25m so more expensive than laminate but cheaper than real wood.

We have used this......


https://www.factory-direct-flooring.co.uk/vinyl-flooring/click

Less expensive than Quickstep I think.

savemoney

The cost is a major factory although I have seen some wood not far off price of high end laminate. Wood does seem thicker so may have to take a few mm off doors, but yes its probably much harder wearing

Silvertabby wrote: »

Wood doesn't take that much looking after, as long as it is given a good coat of wax oil (dries dry) on fitting. Ours is 3 years old now, and still looks as good as the day it was fitted, despite a number of fur balls and a couple of 'other' accidents (elderly puss). Don't have children, though.

The big advantage of wood over laminate (apart from the fact that wood looks so much better) is that in the event of a scratch etc you can gently sand down the wood and re-seal with wax oil. Can't do that with laminate.