To think oak wooden floors may be stupid idea with young kids?

[seeminglyso]

We are looking at getting new floors and really want oak wooden floors. The size of the room means it will cost us roughly 3k. Obviously this is a big spend and if they are going to end up ruined with my four year old dropping toys on (and hoping for another child in the future) am I best just getting laminate and waiting a good few years.

Or Are the things I am reading about dents and scratches an overreaction? Would it still be ok? Anyone who can advise I would be very grateful.

Thanks everyone for being so reassuring - we do really want the oak if it can survive a battering and perhaps it is possible after all!

Imo it's stillettos and high heels which do the damage, so tell your DH, no cross dressing allowed downstairs.

Yes, another recommendation for engineered oak. Think it's a little more expensive but it really should last a lifetime. Our whole downdtairs-apart from kitchen- is engineered oak and it's beautiful. Its been down about 4 years and has a few, very small scratches and marks, but honestly, they are unnoticeable unless you are down on your hands and knees washing the floor. I sweep my floors daily and wash it with wooden floor cleaner weekly. It's miles warmer than laminate ...i loves it!!

I don't want to have to stop kids being kids worrying about dents and scratches.

Oh..and don't allow shoes indoors!

Our oak floor is scratched to blazes after 8 years and 2 DCs. I still love it though!

We just put down oak flooring. I recommend it over anything else. It's very warm and has a lovely feel and look.

We put oak down in our dining room. It's lovely. We have two kids and two cats. The only scratch came when we bought an oak table. Feckin' heavy oak tables.

We recently moved out of a house and I already miss the floor there. It was solid teak wood block throughout the ground floor. It had been down since the house was built in 1965 and still looked great. If money's no object and you're up for hunting around for some reclaimed flooring....

If depends how you feel about it really. We have Victorian original floorboards and they are not at all flawless but to me they are beautiful with their scratches and dents and occasional gap. It wouldn't look right in a brand new house but with the age of our property I think they're fine.

Loletta, ours is Kährs as well. I put it down myself, to be able to afford it. We have it in the bedrooms too btw, it is truly lovely. But then I would never ever put a carpet anywhere except the stairs and maybe a small child's bedroom.

We have yellow pine solid wood Victorian floorboards OK there are some marks but they are 125 years old, how can a wooden floor be ruined in 4 years? The parquet looring in living room has survived toys felt pens etc, I think wood floors are easy to Maintain just brush, our tiled floors are also intact after 125 years

Just makes me think the modern wood has not been seasoned properly if it does not last, we still have original windows but you would be hard pushed to find a manufacturer that would offer more than 10 years on new wooden windows

I would think wood would outlast carpet by decades
H

We moved into a house with oak floors and the previous family had four children. I am guessing the floor had been down a few years and still looked great. We have two under 5's and there has been no damage at all (and it has been tested!). I wouldn't think twice about getting it and wish we had it elsewhere.

Pah. Engineered oak here and it's ruined. Drop a metal car from sofa height and it dents beyond the repair of a sander. And then all the dents go a little bit black.
Never got over the day the play therapy lady came and tipped a bag of wooden blocks onto the floor - dents everywhere.
Toy boxes pushed across the floor catch any piece of grit and scratch. Chairs and tables need regular replacement of soft patches to ensure they don't scratch.
It's lovely underfoot and looks gorgeous but I wish I'd gone cheaper and more durable and stuck underfloor heating in.

One of the reasons I like wood floors is that they show the history of a place, and to be honest I secretly and irrationally get a bit judgy about people wanting to keep their wooden floors pristine. It's wood! It's natural! It's SUPPOSED to wear, and wear is dents and scuffs and scratches, and all the beauty of lived-in-ness. Bung an extra coat of oil on em every few years and be done with it.

I may be mad, because very few people seem to agree with me on this.

So really it sounds like some wood is much stronger and durable than others...

The only dent I managed to put in was when I dropped my iron on it. We have it in the kitchen! I always drop stuff.

Sounds like the money was well spent.

We have had engineered oak (with heating underneath) for seven years. Two kids and it still looks bloody perfect! We don't wear stilettos (not because of the floor just because I'm not a stilettos person!) but ALL other use is normal life with kids.

We have tiled floor in the kitchen, downstairs lol and bathroom but engineered oak everywhere else.

With all things, I suspect you get what you pay for. I put in excruciatingly expensive (£2k a room) engineered oak floors in my last flat and they were indestructible - metal toys banged hard on it didn't make a dent. I also threw the type of fags on the floor, booze everywhere parties that MN abhors and they just wiped off. Babywipes get off pen marks (might have been a tip on here?). And of course the beauty is that if some boards get really damaged, you can just replace them.

I have tiled floors now and they're really easy to keep clean but horribly unforgiving if you drop things on them.

Downstairs loo

We have dark stained engineered oak downstairs throughout. We've had it 3 years and have two small DC. It is scratched and dented - but you can get a dark stain in a bottle you just rub over scratches and they disappear. You can see them if you're looking, or in the light but honestly I think the whole floor still looks great and we don't do anything special to it. It certainly looks better than the crappy laminate we replaced. It's quite warm, too.

Please could I ask what brand you went for?

We covered ours up as it got ruined by dogs and DC and I was sick of sanding and varnishing it