Real wood or luxury vinyl ?

[Bogwarts]

We are looking to refloor all of downstairs, which is currently carpeted. We have been considering a real wood (oak) floor. However this involve the hassle of removing all skirting boards, which when we did this upstairs it caused huge damage to the walls (old house and the walls crumbled away - seemed they were held in place by the skirting ).

Someone recommended "wood look" luxury vinyl planks to us (Amtico/Karndean/Polyflor), which we have never considered before. I have had some samples sent and I am really impressed, particularly with the ones that are bevelled, so look like wood planks when laid. And using these would avoid the hassle of taking off the skirting boards.

But for some reason I am hesitant on the luxury vinyl. Maybe I am being snobbish where I shouldn't be, but I am worried that people will look down on us, as everything you read suggests that real wood is the ultimate that people desire.

So what does MN think? Is "luxury" vinyl considered naff? Would it put you off buying a house if the downstairs had vinyl wood planks rather than real wood?

Personally I'd go with wood, but like to change the look of a room, wood can be stripped and stained a different shade, with vinyl you are stuck with the shade you pick.

I would think long term, go for solid wood and remove skirtings and have the damage repaired, it needn't be too complicated if you get a good plasterer.
IMO and IME real wood is classy, good to walk on and really timeless.

We have wood in our living room & my DS has wrecked it! Can't blame him though as he is only 2 & every kid loves throwing their toys around. We spent £1k last year having the floorboards redone & it already looks very worn with dents & scratches. When we move I am definitely interested in the expensive vinyl as I believe it is better for wear & tear. Good luck

We have Amtico in the kitchen and I love it. It's been down for about 14 years now, so has a couple of dents and scratches, but nothing major.
Over the years I've had loads of people admire it and mistake it for real wood.

wood. you'll regret vinyl in the long run.

Househunting - that is really interesting as one of the rooms we are getting floored is the childrens playroom. With 2 DDs and more children planned, real wood may not be the answer for that room.

Exactly, I used to cringe when my DS had friends round & I could see them throw cars all over the room. Have learnt my lesson!

We also had floorboards in poor condition - we got some replacement reclaimed ones and had them sanded and varnished. The company we used was a floor sanding company - they were going to sand the original ones but it wasn't possible due to the woodworm! The were able to take out the old ones and install the new without damaging the skirting - I was keen to keep it intact as it was just about the only original feature left!

But if you do as Grapefruit suggests and have your boards renovated, any damage to the boards can be repaired (and your skirting saved with no damage done to that).
There is a stain and wax made by Osmo which you can touch up so you dont need to remove the varnish and start again, some info here
www.osmouk.com/osmocolorinterior.cfm?page=0&chapter=1

We used it in our last house and its excellent, the good floor sanders around here all use it.

solid oak floors don't damage from throwing a few toys around, surely? ours are fine, the only damage we have is from my auntie and her blasted dodgy stiletto, and i'd be hard pressed to find even that now tbh.

we are currently debating soft versus hard wood floors...I was dead against soft wood because of markings until we went into a restaurant this weekend with aged floorboards and they looked fantastic...lots of marks but they really had a lot of charachter...soft wood much cheaper than hard wood so I think we will be going for that...our house is about 150 years old so I think it will look good with ageing floor boards that will mark and reflect the passage of time. just a thought.

Well, I was all set on wood...until I walked into the flooring place today and saw a large area of it laid. The difference in colours tc (because it's natural) really stood out to me and I know that any "rogue coloured" boards would really wind me up.

So I decided to go for the luxury vinyl. Might not be so authentic, but at least it looks uniform!

Thanks for all your advice.

really? i like that they're different, that's what stands out between oak and laminate imo.

oh, I'm a heathen Aitch!!

but yes, it turned my blood cold (though for some reason I am fine with old worn boards all being different). And all I coukd remember was a post on MN a few months ago where someone was bemoaning a rogue coloured board as their eye was continually drawn to it.

Which vinyl have you gone for? Our house has both Amtico and Karndean (previous owner's choice) and the Amtico looks way better, imo, than the Karndean. Karndean may have improved a lot though since this was laid. Lots of people admire the Amtico. But, I had stripped wooden floors all over my last house and I can't help thinking, 'Why, oh why, didn't they do that here?'

It's Amtico we have gone for Tinker - this one - which was actually worked out cheaper than the cost we were estimating at