Laminate fucking flooring

[T & P]

Never been a great fan of carpets, specially with the two long haired cats we live with. I have solid wood floor on the living room and our bedroom, and it does look the dog's bollocks. But it cost us £4,500 a few years ago..

We recently got rid of the old and mining carpet in the second bedroom and went for laminate flooring. Including tools and everything it cost us around £120. Sure, it doesn't look as good as proper wood floor by a long mile, but still looks a lot better than carpet IMO. Easy to clean, hygenic and neat.

 

[marco mark]

You are right.

Laminate flooring is rubbish. It feels crap, looks crap and it chips and warps when it gets wet.

We are renting a house with laminate flooring and it is rubbish.

Those wooden slabs you get that slot together, ableit a little more expansive, are much nicer. They only have something like 2mm of wood on the chop but htey are much more hardweanig and actually feels like wood.

Indeed, i went on holiday 3 years ago, during the absence my partner had white laminate flooring laid in the shop & he refuses to clean it now in fact i am sat looking at it thinking what the F are we going to do with it !!!!!

 

[kalidarkone]

Im sooo cheap and common that I have lino that looks like laminate flooring, cos I cant even afford that!! But just in the bathroom!!

I got rid of all the carpets in the house apart from the stairs and upstairs landing cos of masterdarkones asthma.

I am waiting till I have some money to get my floors sanded and varnished and repaired and filled, its gonna be a draughty winter....

 

[wtfftw]

Im sooo cheap and common that I have lino that looks like laminate flooring, cos I cant even afford that!! But just in the bathroom!!

Ah, I've been reading this entire thread thinking that laminate flooring is lino.

We're going to get cork in the kitchen soon

I like cork.


I couldn't give a shit what people do with the floors so long as they're not above me with sanded floorboards.

 

[gaijingirl]

Im sooo cheap and common that I have lino that looks like laminate flooring, cos I cant even afford that!!:...

I know the stuff... I'm sure that's probably very trendy in a retro stylee


or something...

 

[madzone]

That reminds me of a very convoluted and very funny conversation I overheard on the train the other day. Two very Cornish women were talking about their friend. One of them was very distressed that apparently said friend was going to court next week and couldn't understand what she'd done that was so bad. Turns out said friend was going to Cork.

They then went on to discuss Lynda La Plante, with the older woman saying 'She was in a crossword the other day see it did ee?'

 

[boing!]

i can't fucking stand laminate flooring. give me a good old fashioned carpet anyday.

 

[Ms T]

We've got a mixture of sanded floorboards (v. nice), good quality oak veneer (which can be sanded several times, apparently) and coir carpet (hard to clean but the cats love it).

I wouldn't go for laminate, personally, but I've got nothing against it.

 

[gaijingirl]

I wouldn't go for laminate personally either.. but I'd go for it over the next most affordable alternative - carpet!

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

I leave my smalls on the carpet or the wooden floor - I'm not fussy

Do your smalls spill ribena everywhere when you leave them there?

 

[Jayshat]

It's shit!

It's not wood.
It doesn't look like wood.
It doesn't feel like wood when you walk on it.
It feels like plastic.
It looks cheap.
It scuffs quickly with heavy use and looks even cheaper.

If I may be so bold to add one?

Dogs scuff and scratch the floor to bits and can't walk on it properly...

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Tbh, after growing up with horrible carpets (interesting 60s patterns), I'd rather take laminate than a horrible carpet. At least you can definately use rugs on a laminate floor. Yes wood is much nicer but then it's also so much more expensive to make it look good.

And almost in opposite to 'im above ^^^, I think a plus with laminate flooring is that cats sound absolutely adorable when they walk across it!

scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch

 

[Brainaddict]

I think a lot of people are unfairly comparing laminate flooring to carpet that's 10 or 20 years old rather than to nice new carpet. I'm willing to bet that in 10 or 20 years that laminate will look just as tatty as your old carpet.

 

[Jayshat]

I'm willing to bet that in 10 or 20 years that laminate will look just as tatty as your old carpet.

10 or 20 years??

My dog f***ed up our laminate in a matter of 2 years and it looks crap now...

Then again, what the hell is dog friendly?

 

[snadge]

well I sanded and varnished all my floors throughout my house and it's amazing, warm to walk on and so easy to keep clean, I had to replace a few boards though, as I have a bungalow I'm busy doing upstairs up and want to continue the wood look, I hate laminate so I'm buying this

http://www.hardwoodfloorstore.co.uk/Kahrs/Info/kahrs_ash_london.htm

 

[prunus]

I used to feel to same way about laminate - bloody hate the stuff. Our house has it through the ground floor (like that when we moved in) and I' ve never liked it.

Then we had kids though...

A bit a an 'aha' moment.

Still hate it though.

 

[Hood]

Cheap wood floor:

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/fauxplankfloor

There's no excuse for laminate!

 

[milesy]

At least you can definately use rugs on a laminate floor.

can you not use rugs on a carpet, then?

 

[dynamicbaddog]

My dog f***ed up our laminate in a matter of 2 years and it looks crap now...

Then again, what the hell is dog friendly?

I had my living room done out in blue laminated flooring 4 years ago and my dog has'nt damaged it at all and I'm so glad that I did that as well cos my dog is getting old now and she's become incontinant and produces massive puddles all over it in the middle of the night. My place would be minging if I had still had the carpet

 

[pinkmonkey]

I think it depends on the laminate -

Good laminate: Easy to keep clean, lasts a long time.
Cheapo Stuff: I.e. Chipboard with a fablon coating - peels, chips etc.

We have parquet on the boat, it's great, I just sweep and mop it - never understood why people have carpet on their boats, you only need to take a few pissed people out for a spin on a rainy day and you soon find out why.

 

[Pingu]

i have a solid oak floor

its a propper twat to keep clean

we also have laminate in one room

it isnt such a twat to keep clean

and carpets
which collect dog hair like there is no tomorrow

so anyhow

real wood - looks dead boss but twat to keep clean if you ever plan to actually walk on it

laminate - looks ok if you get decent stuff but not as nice as real wood - piece of piss to keep clean

carpet - looks good without the dog hair but needs hoovering every 36 seconds.

 

[Jayshat]

...looks dead boss

Translation please? Origins of the word?

 

[geminisnake]

I think a lot of people are unfairly comparing laminate flooring to carpet that's 10 or 20 years old rather than to nice new carpet. I'm willing to bet that in 10 or 20 years that laminate will look just as tatty as your old carpet.

Hahahahahaha!! When did you last price up a good quality carpet?? Loads of carpets don't last 20 yrs anymore and most of the ones that do are such awful patterns you wouldn't want them in your house anyway!!

I dunno what some do to their laminate or whether all the ones you've seen are the cheap sort but our laminate still looks as new 7/8yrs in, and that's with people wearing big clumpy boots, a cat in the house, clumsiest boy in the world lives here, occasional visits from dogs, etc.

 

[snoogles]

laminate flooring = the English language doesn't contain enough words to sufficiently describe this foul, unspeakable affront to humanity

Not quite sure why I hate it so much...maybe because every time you get to see it you know some cheap stingy bastard of a landlord/vendor has gone "I'll bung £20-worth of laminate down, heh heh, now I can bump the rent/asking price up by £xxx"

grrr landlords grrr

 

[Skim]

I've always wanted a leather floor. Years ago I had this interior design book with a picture of some German artist's floor, which featured huge squares of leather all stitched together. It looked great.

 

[spanglechick]

I've always wanted a leather floor. Years ago I had this interior design book with a picture of some German artist's floor, which featured huge squares of leather all stitched together. It looked great.

yeah - you wait til there's soggy rusk squished into the stitching.

 

[trashpony]

yeah - you wait til there's soggy rusk squished into the stitching.

That's what put me off seagrass

 

[Skim]

yeah - you wait til there's soggy rusk squished into the stitching.

I don't want to think about the practicalities, especially as we've just bought a fancy leather sofa. I'm enjoying it while I can – it'll be spattered with sick in a matter of weeks.

 

[Iguana]

eta - the other benefit of laminate v wood is that you have no gaps with laminate meaning no drafts/gale force winds coming up through your floorboads.

Seriously, wtf kind of crappy wooden flooring have most people on this thread come across? I have wooden floors throughout my house and you wouldn't get drafts through them. Nevermind lose money or have mice crawl through them.

 

[lyra_k]

Seriously, wtf kind of crappy wooden flooring have most people on this thread come across? I have wooden floors throughout my house and you wouldn't get drafts through them. Nevermind lose money or have mice crawl through them.

I think people are talking about the option of sanding/varnishing the original floorboards that are under the carpet, you know, the ones that were never originally designed to be on view, rather than talking about newly installed hardwood floors which are obviously going to look a lot different, but which cost an arm and a leg.

If I was renting I'd prefer laminate floors to manky carpet.

I think this thread is silly. How obvious is it that expensive option A will look better than cheapo option B? Pretty obvious? I don't think that anyone would choose laminate over proper hardwood floors, but that isn't the choice in most people's budgets, is it?