2nd story hard-surface flooring options

[rosiedozie]

If you have something other than wall-to-wall carpet on your 2nd story, what do you have? And is is the same flooring that you have on the 1st story? 

Our whole house is carpet except for kitchen and bathrooms. We will likely replace the 1st floor in the early part of 2014 and the 2nd floor will come later. Our neighborhood won't support the cost of real hardwood flooring, so we are researching our options but so far wood-look tile or high quality laminate are the front runners for downstairs. 

[ktzmoh]

We have hardwood on our second story - it matches the first story.

[msmerymac]

We have hardwood throughout, the same style (except we'll need to replace the master bedroom flooring, which is making me sad, because they don't exactly make antique red pine floors...).

I would favor doing a nice wood laminate throughout. I'm not opposed to carpet in the bedrooms, but it sounds like you are.

[floridakat]

We have the wood-like tile on our first floor, and in the laundry room on the second floor. Everything else is carpet, minus the bathrooms (which are different tiles). I'm not sure I'd want the wood-like tile in the bedrooms; I love it on our first floor, but it would feel too "cold" for me in the bedrooms.

[jloww]

We have the same hardwood as the first floor, but I would prefer carpet in the bedrooms.  Not enough to cover the hardwood though I guess.

[wawa]

where are you located? I know tile in main living areas is weird in some regions and totally normal in others.

We have the same red oak hardwoods through our top two levels, we're installing matching engineered on the not-quite-a-basement and there is 12x12 ceramic tile in the finished area of the basement. (4 level split)

I love having hard floors throughout, but I have allergies and pets and an aversion to my vacuum so w2w is a TERRIBLE idea for me.

[rosiedozie]

Dec 10, 2013 14:12:49 GMT -5 wawa said:

where are you located? I know tile in main living areas is weird in some regions and totally normal in others.

We have the same red oak hardwoods through our top two levels, we're installing matching engineered on the not-quite-a-basement and there is 12x12 ceramic tile in the finished area of the basement. (4 level split)

I love having hard floors throughout, but I have allergies and pets and an aversion to my vacuum so w2w is a TERRIBLE idea for me.

Thanks everyone! 

We are in Texas. I don't know that we could do tile upstairs in the bedroom, it just seems odd. Would it be weird if we had wood look tile downstairs and then laminate upstairs? I also have mad allergies and dogs so I would love to never have w2w carpet again but I don't know if we can avoid it. 

[rosiedozie]

Dec 10, 2013 13:30:53 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

We have pine upstairs, oak downstairs.

How long will you be in the house? If you don't have any plans to move, I'd rather just do what I like than worry about resale value.

It's not our forever home but we don't have any set plans on how long we will be here. So I'm betting on 10-15 years, maybe? 

[TBM]

Dec 10, 2013 16:59:58 GMT -5 rosiedozie said:

Thanks everyone! 

We are in Texas. I don't know that we could do tile upstairs in the bedroom, it just seems odd. Would it be weird if we had wood look tile downstairs and then laminate upstairs? I also have mad allergies and dogs so I would love to never have w2w carpet again but I don't know if we can avoid it. 

We had tile downstairs and hardwood upstairs in our last house.  I really liked that combo. 

The tile downstairs was easy to keep clean and with the dogs and kids, not so precious that we felt like they needed babying. The hardwoods upstairs didn't get much wear and tear like they may have downstairs, so it worked out well for us.

[bunnymendelbaum]

Is wood-look tile really a lot cheaper than real hardwood?

[kaylie]

Dec 10, 2013 21:17:28 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

Is wood-look tile really a lot cheaper than real hardwood?

You can get the tile itself much cheaper than (quality) hardwood but I'd imagine the labor cost would make up for it.

[wawa]

Dec 11, 2013 5:59:25 GMT -5 kaylie said:

Dec 10, 2013 21:17:28 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

Is wood-look tile really a lot cheaper than real hardwood?

You can get the tile itself much cheaper than (quality) hardwood but I'd imagine the labor cost would make up for it.

Plus thinset, grout, and possible need for beefed up subfloor or self-leveler on a slab.

[darkling_glory]

We have oak on our first floor - except for the front room, stairs, and upstairs foyer which is carpeted. The rest of the upstairs has laminate that we chose to match the downstairs.

I love having barely any carpet! This is probably our forever home, so eventually we'll restain the hardwoods and then full in the front room, stairs, and do the upstairs. For now, I like the laminate. It's easy to care for and looks nice.

[rosiedozie]

Dec 10, 2013 21:17:28 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

Is wood-look tile really a lot cheaper than real hardwood?

It will cost less, but for us one of the main considerations is the durability and ease of cleaning. We have big, rowdy dogs that would probably cause some damage to hardwoods over time.

[floridakat]

We could have done real hardwood for the same price we did the wood-look tile, but we live in Florida and real hardwood floors are rare down here. Too much humidity, and too much danger of water damage due to storms. Almost everyone tiles down here, but we were tired of the ceramic tile look and preferred the hardwood look, so we went with the wood tiles. We're very happy with them!