[Closed] Laminate flooring, is it naff..?

We had a quality laminate installed downstairs in our last house and will have it installed again in our current home when we do it up. By quality I'm meaning it had a good amount of 'real' wood as the top layer, though I'm sure there's more to it!

I reckon it basically breaks down to two things, the quality of the laminate and the quality of the fitting - and IMO it's the fitting which is key. When we left our last house the floor was as solid as the day we first walked on it seven years before, yet we have friends who spent more than us per square meter but who had to have their floor relaid after two years because of the movement in it.

A side question, is engineered flooring another way of saying laminate?

When we moved in to our place about 10 years ago, I wanted to put laminate down. MrsLugz had other ideas and came back with solid oak flooring.

Cost about 20% more than laminate and took a lot longer to lay, but it still looks nice now.

edited for crummy spelling

This stuff is child friendly..... http://www.karndean.com/

Engineered solid wood isn't laminate and it is generally more durable than solid wood planks. Get untreated stuff and seal it yourself with Osmo hardwax oil.

IME the cheap stuff, circa £20sm lasts better than the expensive stuff, we have both in adjoining rooms and the cheap stuff seems a lot less prone to scratches and dents (high heels) than the 'solid' wood we have.
Although I'm sure the better stuff will look better if you can be arsed to look after it!
Cheers.

I've currently got a pile of engineered oak flooring acclimatising in the otherwise empty livingroom waiting for the man to come and fit it tomorrow morning. It's unfinished oak and it's getting an osmo oil wax coating once it's down as per various reccomendations from here. Not much more expensive than decent plastic laminate but when this inevitably gets scratched it will still look good and can be rubbed down if required.

If your patient it's not impossible to redo the parquet flooring, I laid some reclaimed stuff in the living room, if it's already stuck down rent a floor sander, give it a sand, point the cracks with epoxy resin mixed with sawdust, sand again with a finer grit, and varnish with a roller
Sanded
[IMG] [/IMG]
Varnished
[IMG] [/IMG]
Or sell it on eBay, reclaimed is fetching decent money at the mo

Khani, looks great. Problem is I have a good few loose blocks, what do I stick 'em down with?

What varnish did you use?

I used some stuff called Lecol 7500 and satin finish floor varnish from the dulux shop
More in this thread
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bare-floorboards-what-can-i-use-to-effective-fill-the-gaps-to-prevent-drafts

I've lived in a few houses with laminate flooring and echo what's been said above about the quality of the fit. My current house has it (fitted by someone previous) and it's a much better fit than a flat I lived in, were it moved around underfoot. I use 1001 Laminate floor cleaner on it (£1 from poundland) and it keeps it shiny. It's not a patch on a real wood floor but then it's not as expensive, I prefer it to carpet.

That floor looks great!

I was expecting lots of slating of laminate so I was afraid to look in here. I ended up going for laminate for my flat I am doing up. Got some Quickstep stuff on 4 for 3 last month. I am renting the flat out and wood was just going to be too expensive and the laminate should actually be more resistant to damage.

If was living there then it would be more of a difficult decision but by the time there are rugs down and furniture installed then there won't be any large expanses of floor to see and laminate was the most sensible option.

And yes spend a bit more on one with some texture and bevelled edges and make sure it is fitted very well and nice and flat. There is a big difference between a crap shin, shiny, smooth laminate that rises up and a decent one. Also get decent underlay as it will help deaden the noise which is worse with laminate and don't use those corner fillet things on the skirting board.

IMVHO it is a punishable offence to not replace the skirting board. Those edge bits held in place with nails are horrible!

In my last house I had good quality oak coloured laminate fitted, together with new skirting boards, and it looked really nice.

In my new house, there is proper wood flooring complete with the above mentioned, nasty edge bits. To be honest, it looks shabby and the colour is overpowering. Reckon it would take a lot of time to sand and re-varnish.

I've got no skirting boards in my flat as it's just been tanked 😀

But I would be ripping them off before putting any new flooring in.

khani is that just a bad angle or did you use about 14 coats of varnish on that! 😯

Three coats an a crappy camera....

Fit [url= http://www.pergo.com/en-gb/Consumer/Products/Laminate-floors/ ]Pergo[/url]. It's not cheap contains no real wood and is indestructible! I'm sure you can find a design to your taste. I've fitted several including in our last hallway. The coating is bulletproof (literally). Now living in a Victorian house with exposed floorboards, I'd go back to laminate tomorrow if it fitted the decor - it doesn't 🙁

If you are in the Manchester area have a look at Safeway Flooring (Stockport). They have put down 2 parquet floors for us, both much less that £2k.

They will give you a price for tarting yours up.

IMVHO it is a punishable offence to not replace the skirting board

My house was built about 15 years ago, and all the internal walls are plasterboard with (I expect) the skirting boards glued to them. Sod taking them off and making good, those "edge bits held in place by nails" will just have to do. IMVHO!

Go round the room with a sharp chisel on a piece of the flooring and nock a gap off round the bottom of the skirt, easier than taking the skirts off and looks miles better than crappy beading

I have laminate in the nursery and engineered oak in the lounge. The oak definitely looks nicer, but is far less resistant to scratches and dents. So think about how careful you are likely to be!