Depends on a few things. How much is your house? In your area, do houses in your price range have laminate, or is hardwood standard? how big is your dog? how old is your dog? how crazy is your dog? would you clean a spill up quickly and how often would you spill? when are you planning on reselling the house? ask your realtor if laminates would be a bad thing for your house. you can do laminate now, then in a few years, if it isnt suiting you, replace it. if it is, then you saved a bunch of money and are happy. we have a 2 yr old 100lb lab, she is VERY rough on the floors, but the laminate has zero scratches, and the hardwood trim is getting a beating. when she gets startled or looses traction... out come the nails. If we had hardwoods, we would have to refinish the floors before we sell the house, no doubt, so we would have had to triple our flooring budget, AND refinish before we moved! some laminate can be as expensive as hardwood, installation is also a very different in price, so do what fits your budget. We liked the color for the cheapest lam lowes had, we couldnt be happier. if it was the same price, of course hardwood is the only option, but it wasnt. that is precisely why laminates were created. laminate is also a little softer for falling babies. we have a 4 month old and real hardwoods or tile would give me anxiety attacks everyday, and she cant even crawl yet. in the end, it is what you like. 5-10 years down the line, you can rip it up and start over if you like, but do get a better pad, that makes a difference.

onelady1dog2girls, Thank you for thinking of me. I did check out the website and that Sunset Glow Hickory sounds beautiful (and was pretty in the picture) but it is a solid wood only. I live in the preserved wetlands and my floor is concrete with no basement due to the area I live in. I have made up my mind that I only want a prefinished engineered wood floor. I also have 8 foot ceilings. I was not that crazy about the new version of the 5" wide Engineered wood flooring from Brazilian Direct despite really liking the company and Shannon. I loved their solid wood samples last year and I really loved their solid Kempas Samples. I wish they had engineered wood floors in a 3.25" width. A solid wood floor over a plywood floor will raise my floor up much higher than my tiled foyer floors and my kitchen floor and make my ceiling look lower in my living room and dining room (which both are my two room home office). My family room has a Cathedral ceiling so it could handle the floor being raised despite the kitchen floor lower but I think solid wood is not right for my type of concrete sub-floor. I preferred Brazilian Direct's engineered wood floor sample from last year despite a lesser veneer sawn layer on top. I just really feel I am leaning towards a floor no wider than 4" and preferably 3.25 to 3.5" wide to minimize cupping problems. I really like the finish on the BR-111 3.25" wide plank samples I have here that is not too glossy but has a drop of gloss. Despite the 3/8th being the same height as my new Porcelain Tiles, I just wish the planks were 1/2" thick with the same 3 MM wear layer. But then again, the semi-gloss finish on the Coswick Quartersawn Oak Engineered floors is nice also.

Despite not liking how dark my Brazilian Cherry floors became in my home office, I loved them so much in my family room so I have been so disappointed they were ruined in my flood recently. I have tried so many sample big boards from a local store and I am realizing that the wide board just does not look good in my home office and I do love my floors despite the color change. I am not back into deciding which exotic wood floor but in the 3.25" or 3.5" wide depending on which engineered width is being offered. All the really wide boards in other brands just do not look right in my home office with little floor showing to my eyes. Also if the boards are shorter and less wide, more of the light boards will be seen and I will see the mosaic of colors that I fell in love with almost 4 year ago when I installed my floors. Yes, they change color but no wood is perfect especially if one is stuck with engineered wood since I am on a slab floor and I have to make sure the wood looks good with my Putty file cabinets. Hope this helps others that despite the problems associated with Brazilian Cherry needing to be cleaned more often and darkening, I do love the exotic floors the way they dramatically make a room come alive if one can't have rugs in the room.

Old thread but I wanted to update...we chose the laminate for the master. And I'm sorry. Not sorry that the carpet is gone, the laminate is a good improvement but I wish I had gotten wood. When he was doing the floor Dh said, this laminate is nice, let's put it all over the house...I don't know why but I said no, let me live with this a few months first. One good thing, we can (and have) moved furniture all over, around the painter, etc and it's not been a problem, no scratches. Brutuses, I haven't kept up, are you in your house yet? And how do you like your floors, if you're in? Susan