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?

its very annoying
i like a bit of scruffy carpet

bibbitybobbityhat

Thank you for your kind words

I like to be helpful

Despite being a man

I cannot stand the sound of it. DS wanted some in his bedroom so I got him some good quality vinyl flooring. Much quieter and soft and warm underfoot

I love my laminate flooring! Soo much easier to clean up baby vomit & decapitated blackbirds (evil cats)

I put really cheap stuff down in the living room at my old house & it was still fine after 5 yrs when I moved out. I'm slowly replacing all the carpets in the new house with laminate (or rhinofloor lino). A couple of the rooms have real wood tops on the laminate - is that still chav?

I love mine and i had a thread like yours too

I can understand those who prefer real wood but not those who prefer carpet, i can never feel that a carpet is clean.

We have engineered wood, so no issues with chipping/peeling - it does dent/scratch, but as it is wood it doesn't really look bad? Whereas before we had 80% wool sodding cream carpets. Well, cream and muck coloured - hence why we changed. We bought a carpet cleaner which personally I thought was a big waste of about £100! I think it would have been fine if we had cheaper polypropylene carpets, but the wool seems to soak in the dirt.

So if carpets + kids, I think cheaper is better, if it's hard floor + kids, you need to go more expensive.

Oh, and if you have a dog or are thinking of getting one, just think how irritating the clicky claw sounds will be running backwards and forwards on wood/laminate floors (though you may get comedy value and a video on You've Been Framed if your dog skids on the flooring!)

i LOVE mine

i have it all through my downstairs apart from the hall which is black and white checkerboard tiles.

its good quality though, not the yellow-toned stuff. i think it looks really nice and it cleans easily. i think carpet can be very grubby. and look it too.

Further to Idontlike and Bessie, I think vinyl/ lino is very underrated. That's probably very controversial .

Since giving my carpets a clean, I've gone right off them. I could not believe the muck that came out of a supposedly clean carpet.

What about solid wood flooring.It's natural but much more pactical thean striiped floorboards

i have a laminate that looks like real wood in my lounge and hall way, tiles in the kitchen and carpet upstairs, but we are past the kiddie puking stages!

i love my floors. i have cats and dogs and kids so its clean and easy, and i have a lovely big rug in the lounge that i change every year or so to revamp the place when i decorate, i tie the rug in to the colour scheme.

fwiw i think laminate in asthmatics bedroom is far better than carpet, i was going to replace DS carpet with it but he seems to have grown out of his asthma at the age of almost 20! ( obviously you need 20 years worth of dust to desensitise, my slatternly cleaning did some good then!)

It's like the make-up thread. There's no mileage in dissing stuff that Mr average would diss on here. No, you have to diss at lest 2 levels up if you want to fit in.

We've got industrial quality laminate flooring downstairs, and it was done over ten years ago. It gets hoovered daily, mopped as necessary, and has had ten years of pet and child abuse and it still looks fab. There's no chipping, warping or scratches, but this is down to the quality of the laminate.

Tis bloody annoying to hear the dogs claws clicking, but v funny when he slides around corners when the floor is wet

we have solid wood canadian oak throughout our whole downstairs. It is brillant and wasn't extremely expensive. We paid £20 a metre from Direct Flooring and then £14 a metre for them to fit it, so I don't think this is anymore than a good wool carpet. It is fab, I mop it once a week and it is still like new after several years. If you can stretch to it definitely worth it. It also adds value to your house so I look at it as an investment.

I love my laminate floor

How about engineered wood? Is it worth spending a bit more and going for that rather than laminate, or should you just go for the laminate (presuming that your budget doesn't stretch to real wood)?

Personally I don't like laminate but think it is miles better than (a) carpet and (b) cheap tiles.

Weirdly, I have been (mildly) impressed by posh lino in the past. Which probably only sounds odd if you know what an obnoxious snob I am about these things.

Actually, looking here on Flooring Direct there seems to be solid wood for £22 a square metre, and Direct Flooring (which seems to be a completely different company) also has solid wood for £22.99 - worth going for over engineered wood? Or does it need lots of maintenance?

I've got Berry Floor laminate upstairs in a dark oak colour and I think it looks really nice, it isn't noisy or cold at all. Downstairs we have a lighter oak laminate that was here when we moved in. I have 4 DC, who've spilt drinks and dropped metal toy cars on it and it is still going strong, no chips or swelling.

I think carpet is lovely when it is new, but whenever I've washed it, I've been horrified by the amount of dirt that was there unseen. I put rugs on my laminate, so the DC have somewhere soft to sit and play, but I love my laminate and like knowing that when I've hoovered, it is clean and not hiding dirt, like my carpets did.

I have laminate but would much prefer engineered wood.

friends have that and it feels much nicer under foot.

I agree with all the other who say that laminate shows the dust up really badly.

Possibly a stupid question, but what is "engineered wood"?

We put laminate down when we moved in here as it was a new build and the house had to dry for a bit so we couldnt put solid wood down for a while. I have to say I am in no rush to take it up. It looks fine and is so easy to maintain. Dh is a snob about it though and hates it.

I would go for hardwood flooring if you can afford it. Just as easy to clean (if not easier), lasts longer and kind of looks better. But laminate is still better than carpets IMO, especially if yours is all dirty :)

Laminate in kitchen, dining room are fab
Up in bedrooms cold. Don't like and v noisy.
Have sittingroom and stairs carpet, warm, soft and comfy but must be really dirty when you see the other floors.
Overall recommend but not too pale