I wasn't impressed by Lumber Liquidators's prices or quality. Well - more to the point, I felt you could get one or the other, but NOT the best combination of price and quality. If you do a search for Lumber Liquidators on the Flooring forum, you'll see that many other folks here agree.

We bought our hardwoods from HoskingHardwood (online) and I have been very pleased with the quality, value and service. If she's ordering more than 500 SF or so, BuildDirect would be another company to check out.

I agree with sweeby, Lumber Liquidators didn't offer the quality that we were looking for when we had our hardwood installed. We also used HoskingHardwood, found a perfect match for the new flooring to flooring we had installed eight years ago, and it's beautiful all throughout the house now. My neighbor used Lumber Liquidators, and in all truth, she paid more than we did and the flooring doesn't have the same quality as ours.

I think that the first rule with Lumber Liquidators is that if they don't have it in stock, don't try and order it. That seems to be where a lot of complaints come from - it takes forever to never to get their order.

I have maple flooring from LL in most of my bedrooms. We purchased it because it was incredibly inexpensive and I really wanted the carpet out of the bedrooms. It is real maple, but not thick enough to refinish. I've heard that most people aren't even sanding and refinishing engineered wood, so maybe that's not relevant.

Anyways - This maple floor is ROCK SOLID!!! I have oak in the rest of the house that has dents and dings, but not that maple floor. We've had it for probably 7 years now, and it looks as good as the day we put it down, even in the kids rooms.

So, here's the thing - Lumber Liquidators do not manufacture floor, (possibly with the exception of Bellawood, which I have heard nothing but complaints about). If they find a floor there at a good price, then research that particular brand and style and compare price.

I've had my natural maple Bellawood floors for over 4 years and I couldn't happier. When I was checking around at local flooring stores I couldn't even touch maple wood - very expensive. Lumber Liquidators was much more affordable and Bellawood is a very nice quality floor in my opinion.

It's actually a solid hardwood, not engineered, made by Bellawood that we are looking at. Check the link I sent again Mom.

It's an odd lot, so we are expecting some non-conforming pieces. We've overestimated our square-footage more than typically recommended to allow for that.

So what are your experiences with (or opinions of) Bellawood in particular? As well as your experiences of installing a prefinished hardwood floor yourself?

Ok here's the correct link, sorry bout that. Mom messed up :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Bellawood from Lumber Liquidators

I have Bellawood flooring throughout just about my entire home. No one was able the beat the price of LL. Because we bought so much they delivered it to us. The color is beautiful.

We overestimated and was able to do a second bedroom because of that. There was a bit of waste but than again we went with natural and were fussy with the variations.

Ours are 1/2" in thickness. We were told they could not be refinished more than 4 times. I don't think I will be living here long enough for that many refinishes. LOL.

We had the floors installed for $3.00 a sq ft by a contractor. So, I don't have any DIY experiences.

When I was looking at hardwood flooring and trying to make a decision, I asked my flooring guy about Bellawood. He said he had done several jobs with it, and he would not recommend it. He said it had all kinds of flaws in it, and the installation was a nightmare. I also read terrible things about it on a flooring forum.

We were going to go with the 3/4" Brazilian Walnut from LL, but were dreading having to find a way to haul 1230 sq ft, so thanks for mentioning BuildDirect. I'd looked at them for slate tile, but didn't need near as much as their minimum, but I meet the min. for wood. Even with shipping it is $898.57 less than LL, partly because they estimate fewer additional sq ft. than LL does. So, if I then guess how much renting a trailer would have cost, it is a pretty good deal.

Anyway, I ordered a sample. Thanks again.

Bettycbowen-our delivery was free from LL.

Our installers did not have any issues nor did they mention flaws.

We got Bellawood white oak floors from LL when we did our laundry/pantry and 1/2 bath. It is gorgeous, was easy to install and is holding up great. It puts our other hardwood (laid and finished in place by a flooring guy) floors to shame.

jerseygirl, I was not worried about LL's quality, most of the negative reviews I've read were for engineered or the lower grades, or DIY/return issues, and an architect friend recommended this particular wood from them, but I have been worrying about the hassle of hauling.

The LL here in Oklahoma will not deliver, period. There is not as much competition out here, I guess. Mill Creek wouldn't deliver to our town either. I pretty tickled to find somebody who will deliver for a similar price, we were both dreading that weekend experience.

It all depends on the quality of the sample though. We were very pleased with the LL sample, DH even ran it through the dishwasher a couple of times and left it soaking in the sink for hours, and the finish barely peeled up in a few places on the edges. I have no idea why he did that, but it was amusing.

We bought from LL...Brazillian cherry solid select grade. It is beautiful. We ordered from a local store wihtout any problems. I would order from a store if you have one anywhere close by rather than the internet. I just think you would get more customer service from them taht way. We tested so many wood samples as we have 4 boys, another on the way and a dog. We pounded it with match box cars & wrote on it with markers. Our little tests showed it to handle the most.

We did a DIY purchase-and-install of approx 800sqft of engineered Brazilian Cherry from Lumber Liquidators about a year ago (I think this is it). We have a LL under 45 minutes away, so we loaded up the pickup. It was all instock*, so we walked out the door with it the day we bought it. (There were samples that came home first, obviously!) Exception was two pieces of stairnose that we needed: those had to be ordered, and there was definitely a longer delay in getting those than I thought reasonable.

Questions about how easy/difficult things are to install is going to vary by brand and what material it is. Solid hardwood will have more variations than, say, engineered. I don't think we had ANY pieces that were unusable due to poor quality (curves, bends, breaks in tongue/groove, surface marring, etc). The boxes looked pretty chintzy/cheap, but the product itself was beautiful. No kids, but three cats and ongoing construction (heh), and it only has a few marks - mostly from extreme circumstances (let's just say my husband is sometimes careless about where he THROWS a hammer. ahem.)

Anyway. The actual installation is pretty straightforward, though the details again vary by what product. We rented a compressor and nail gun, because we did the nail/staple installation. We took turns being the "nailer" and the "feeder" - the "feeder" was responsible for mixing lengths of pieces, intermixing boxes, cutting end pieces to length, etc. It took us close to three full (12 hour) days to get it all down - again, 800sqft in four bedrooms and weird shaped hallway, and we had to shift furniture from room to room - so a living room should be a one-day project.

There is some good information online, as far as installation instructions/tips/etc - including the LL website. It really only takes some basic carpentry skills (cutting to length, nailing neatly), and some forethought (which way should it run, marking parallel lines occasionally, etc).

We installed 720 sf of the Morning Star Click bamboo flooring sold by Lumber Liquidators in June of 2013. The material finish scratches easy, however, the scratches are the least of our problems. The cupping started with the shorter pieces in the hallways. By December 2013, the entire installation was cupping and gaps appeared in random areas. When LLI was contacted about the defects, we were informed that the condition was not covered under their warranty.
In reading the various reviews on independent sites for this product, it seems that there is a chronic problem with scratching, cupping and separations. Lumber Liquidators will use any excuse to avoid any liability for providing their customers with a very poor product.
Our first mistake in selecting our new floor was believing that the reviews on the LLI site were unbiased reviews. The product reviews on the LLI website are "selected" reviews. Gee....I wonder who selects them. Our second mistake was actually purchasing this product.
We will have to replace our eight month old floor and it sure as heck will not be with a product supplied by Lumber Liquidators.
We learned a $5,000.00 lesson the hard way⦠donâÂÂt make the same mistake.
The LLI warranty should be condensed to read: âÂÂWarranty is void if material is removed from factory packagingâÂÂ.
STAY AWAY FROM LUMBER LIQUIDATORS!!!!!!!!!!

It's now 2022....And you should still STAY AWAY from LL Flooring....unless you enjoy punishment, poor materials and poor installation.

Ask me how I know and I will be glad to tell you about my personal, recent, first-hand experiance with their solid hardwood and with their LVP tile.

DO NOT PAY IN FULL UP FRONT FOR THE COMPLETE JOB...LL Floors will blow you off and not finish the job, lie, and cheat you!

My installation was a joke! Looks like a kid who flunked woodshop in high school did it.

Unless you check every floor piece for color, chips. reflectivity, finish, in other words everything LL Flooring does not warrantee anything after installation. They will not return calls unless threatened and even then customer support only is there to protect the company and not to support the customer in any way. These people are terrible.

The vinyl plank flooring I purchased from them and had their installers put in, seems to be doing okay. However, their installation crew on this project install talents were questionable. I would suggest a local store that has been in business for some time. You may pay a little more albeit, you get what you pay for.