to not get why people are derogatory about laminate flooring

[mavornia]

After having a puker extraordinaire in ds1 and a good few splatterings from ds2, my bedroom carpet is quite frankly rank

I'm having it replaced with laminate flooring on Friday

I think it looks good and it will be delightfully easy to clean

so why are people so sniffy about it?! So much cleaner than carpet with children around and cheaper and easier to clean than real wood too

what am i missing?

It has a lot of pros, as knittedbreast said, you would be having to clean it more often as all dust and dirt shows up, I would have thought that a pro as opposed to carpet which collects and hides poor hygiene

But, if it is done badly and looks obviously really face and that horrid yellow tone, it is pretty naff. I want it in my next house if there is no real wooden floorboards, but I will be shelling out for the very expensive stuff.

LittleMissFlustered - in our first house we rented a sander from righthire and did it ourselves - the boards came up beautifully. We varnished our first attempt but waxed the second room which looked much better as it didnt look 'scratchy'

Fake, not face

We have laminate in our hall and dining room and downstairs loo. I agree with knittedbreast. It is a pain to keep clean. No sooner have you brushed it up than you notice yet more dust and dirt and fluff. Brushing is not an effective way of cleaning. I would rather hoover. Plus you can't wash it. You aren't meant to get it wet and if you do (as in our downstairs loo) it gets spoilt. We have quite expensive laminate and it specifically says on the packaging that they won't guarantee it for spills. The guy who sold it to us also told us not to get it wet. It hasn't chipped though, except for one tiny spot where somebody dropped the point of a pair of scissors on it.

It is very noticable that the friends and family we know with laminate who used to rave about it are now slowly replacing it with carpet. Much easier to clean (the hoover will do the job much better than a brush), much warmer and much quieter and with 2 boys this is a consideration.

Having said all that, given the amount of food that gets dropped by my two on the dining room floor, much as I dislike it, it is the better choice for that room so I don't suppose we will be getting rid of it just yet. I certainly wouldn't use it in a bedroom though - I would spend my entire life on my hands and knees recovering dust bunnies from under the bed or more likely just leaving them there to breed.

"WhereYouLeftIt ... several layers of wood, grain going in different directions"

What you are describing is not Laminate, but Engineered Wood flooring. Basically it's a kind of Ply but with a selected top veneer and very rough sub-layers. It's more expensive than Laminate.

I think it is a fashion aspect. 15ish years ago everyone was laying laminate 'wood looking' flooring, now it is passe. Most people now 'expect' real wood flooring as it is de rigour. That is not to say that real wood flooring is solid wood, it could be cheap 2-3mm (at most) thick on top of hardboard tongue and groove.

Neither laminate nor wood flooring are recommended in wet rooms. Some top end laminates are more expensive than cheaper wood flooring too.

Estate agents value a house higher if it is wood flooring than laminate flooring too. Their assumption is that new owners automatically rip laminate flooring out and relay something more fashionable, so they calculate that in the price (as they would an old kitchen/bathroom etc).

Personally, I have never liked laminate (not even 15 years ago when it was in fashion). But that is just my opinion and not worth a dime.

because it is a cheap imitation of something else.

For me it falls into the same category as faux leather furniture, nylon rugs and mock Georgian UPVC front doors.

We have bamboo flooring in all rooms except bathroom and kitchen and no carpet anywhere. We have had it for about 6 years and it still looks good with very little wear and tear.
It was quite expensive at the time as we had to go to a specialist and had to make a lot oa sacrfises to get it. I understand it it a lot more reasonable now and available more widespread.

It is lovely to look at and really does a lot for our home. Easy to clean - just sweep daily and clean/mop weekly or when required.

BUT I do like the feel of warm fluffy carpet under bare feet. Nothing beats that homely feeling.

A nice compromise is to have nice rugs over woodern floors. If you can afford real wood do it Laminate is what it is - not real and will wear so much quicker.

When we moved into our home 20 years ago wood floors were not in fashion but our lounge and dining room both already had them. My husband wanted to carpet over them but I wouldn't let him because of the way they would seal carpets to the floor. I wanted to see how we got on with the wood first; I thought it looked lovely with a rug.

Fashions then changed and ours came into fashion. It is very practical and now we are the envy because its japanese solid oak and would cost an absolute fortune to lay.

I know laminate is the affordable alternative but I would have laminate if I moved rather than carpet, and if we couldn't afford real wood.

In the rooms we have improved we have tiles rather than carpet because such floors are so much easier to look after.

Pigletjohn - can I just say your posts on this thread have been v helpful! I am going to put it on watch for future reference. Thanks.

We had laminate flooring (cheap stuff to be fair) in the past and hated it. It got chipped and scratched and where it got wet it got damaged and there was nothing you could do about it. Now we have real oak flooring which was comparable in price to the more expensive laminates (from here easystepflooring.co.uk/products.html ) and although it does get scratched the scratches fade quite quickly to not be so obvious, and when it does get really tatty (which I think will take a good few years) we'll be able to sand it down and refinish it and we'll get several years more out of it. Which we will be able to do again, and again, and again. We got it fitted by a local carpenter who did a fantastic job too. Much cheaper than going to a flooring company to supply and fit (less than half the price).

I think if you go for a more expensive laminate that is more resistant to damage it's fine though. We just felt the real wood was better value in the long term and (personal taste) we prefer the way it looks.

Following on from what mummyofonegirl said, we've just had bamboo flooring in a conservatory and it looks fantastic. Glad to hear good things about its durability.

It must have gone down in price over the years, cos it was the cheapest "solid" option I could find. (Think it's engineered, sort of). Got it from UK flooring direct, an online dealer.

We have bamboo flooring everywhere apart from the kitchen and utility (tiled) and one room that has laminate.
The laminate was here when we moved in and isn't aging well - the bamboo has been down for 3 years and looks lovely.

I don't like laminate.

Cheap-looking and cold. And you can always tell if someone hasn't brushed/hoovered - it shows everything.

I prefer carpet. If I couldn't have carpet for any reason, I'd rather take out a second mortgage and go for wooden flooring.

Nothing to do with snobbery, just don't like it!

i'm really happy with ours.
solid wood would have been very difficult to fit in our dining room as the floor is too uneven. engineered wood was the next best option, but on viewing the samples i preferred the finish of the most expensive laminate. so we got that. it's been professionally fitted, so no warping or rising.

several people have mistaken it for real wood.
and one of them was bibbitybobbityhat.

Are people really derogatory about it? I've never been to someone's house and told them I don't like their floor!

The only time I think I would mention it is if I was viewing a house to buy and it had been given the 'magnolia paint and cheapest laminate flooring' makeover by some cretinous arsehole.

Mine is definitely the cheap stuff.
With three Autistic kids and animals I'm not wasting money I haven't got on the expensive stuff that will get trashed.
It's ikea, and not looking too bad after 2 years' abuse.

I'm not keen on it. DD has just viewed a house with all amtico floors in the receptions and kitchen and has put in an offer which reflects the fact that she will want to replace all those floor coverings. The upstairs carpet will just need steam cleaning. If you can't afford solid hardwood, it's probably better to stick with a neutral carpet.

We have a good quality laminate in our hallway running into the cloakroom, one living room, downstairs loo and kitchen-diner and it looks fab. It does need sweeping every other day but I rarely mop it and have no marks/chips or rising. We will have had it down for 4 years this September and its guaranteed for at least 10 years.

I have a dark beige carpet in the front living room and find that more of a pain to keep clean but I do like a carpet in the main room.

Not a fan. We've just moved house and it's in the living room and our bedroom. When the kids get up in the morning the noise echoes throughout the house! Also, and most hideously, by the time I am dressed and ready to go down stairs, my feet are FREEZING. It's carpets all the way for me!

We've got vinyl (the type that comes on a big roll) which looks like wood. Most visitors are fooled and think it's either wood or laminate. Is quieter and warmer than laminate... and cheaper than wood... was from Carpet Right so probably common I expect!!

Carpet is good for the cold weather, keeps my feet nice and warm. Its really quite unhygienic though on the other hand. Traps dirt and dust and some of it is so ingrained that vacuuming won't remove it completely. Use the carpet cleaner twice a year at least and still not really that clean. If you have a potty-training toddler around, carpets are a nightmare. The good thing is though if I don't have the time to vacuum daily, the carpet still looks and feels okay.

Non-carpeted floors are much easier to clean properly than carpet so seems more hygienic that way. But that said, having lived in property with laminate and real wood, I really prefer the look and feel of real wooden floors that are nicely polished and sanded down. I don't think laminate is easier to clean than real wooden floors. In my experience, both laminate and real wooden floors get sticky really quickly so require more cleaning to keep them looking and feeling good.

Can just look a bit cheap & dated IMO, but I reckon if it's fitted well and not the generic beech colour then it could look pretty good :)

another one her sitting on the fence, it looks nice but with winter, the floor is freeezing and your living room doesn't stay as warm for as long, as it does with carpet. you therfore may find that you either need a huge rug to cover as mcuh of the middle of the floor as possible or a few smaller rugs - again it defeats the original purpose of laminate

it needs constantly sweeping (which i don't mind tbh)

I think its a fashion thing.

The late 90's IKEA beech wood explosion went hand in hand with laminate and it looked very fresh to people who grew up living with swirly carpets.

As with any design fashion it reached saturation point, everyone had it so like popular baby names it became less and less desirable.

Agree with posters who say it can be good but steer clear of thin boards and pale colours. Oak wood is very classic and never dates IMO.