Flooring Help! wood vs vinyl vs laminate

5 years ago

Good Morning - I need some help with flooring options for kitchen please. I am looking for a wood look - either real hard wood, vinyl or laminate. The estimate for real wood came in higher than expected so I want to explore the less expensive options.

How is pre-finished hard wood? Can that be refinished at a later date?

Are Vinyl and laminate the same or should I be looking at a specific type (i.e luxury vinyl)? If I go this route, is there anything that I should look for or stay away from?

Struggling with this decision because I have some friends who love their vinyl/laminate (that looks like wood) and it held up for years and then others who say that theirs scratched easily and looked terrible soon after install - I am guessing that this had something do with what they actually installed?

Thank you!

Featured Answer

Pam A

5 years ago

If you can do wood, I say do wood. It doesn't work in all situations. Sometimes you can mitigate those issues (add a tray under your dog's water bowls, get some nice mats for the doors, get a nice mat by the sink). Sometimes it's harder to mitigate the problems (large dogs with sharp toenails that wrestle each other all the time, people in and out of a pool area with drippy suits).

I'm doing vinyl plank, and I am ensuring I get a color where the top color is similar to the color underneath. A darkly colored top coating with white core will show scratches really badly. A medium toned top with medium toned core will not be as bad. I also had to switch from "floating install on thick plank" to "glue down" because the glue-down version has much better texture. Mannington Adura glue down (Adura Flex) is made in USA, but the Adura Rigid and Adura Max are made in China, which explains why the Flex looks like the others but has a much different surface on the top layer. There's more texture & that also makes it look nicer to me.

I think wood is the one that is hard to get "wrong" to a potential buyer. Maybe it's darker or lighter than they would have chosen, but it's not usually a deal breaker.

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Comments (6)

PRO
Oak & Broad
5 years ago
bf12345 , most good quality wood flooring can be refinished again in the future as taste and style changes. That refinish process can give you a completely different look. Wood has a really good ROI over time. Synthetic floors are a turn off to some homeowners. It may hurt resale value while wood flooring is always a big selling point for any home on the market.
Megan Wilkins
5 years ago
We have gone back and forth on this as well- we are doing a major dining, living, kitchen remodel. We have decided to go with a beautiful wide plank engineered hardwood (French oak) from Bella cera called “Monza” bivio. It’s just light and natural and I think will look beautiful with our white cabinets. It’s a wire brushed engineered hardwood which I like more than the rustic hand scraped ones. It was very affordable at less than $4/SF. We have had a few people try to discourage real wood in the kitchen but my parents have had knotty pine floors for 30 year and they’ve held up fairly well and have been refinished twice. The only thing with engineered wood is the top layer is fairly thin with plywood underneath, so you can’t really refinish them but most wont need to be since they have a 25-50 yr residential warranty. I chose one that had some knots and grains and looked like it’d be forgiving. Some of the new lvt is more expensive but really pretty, I can just tell it’s not real wood and it feels a little plasticky and I just like natural materials. My friend has it in her yoga studio and for that application I think it’s great. The only thing I am nervous about is not being able to steam mop my kitchen and having to use wood cleaner with a microfiber mop. But I like rustic and genuine surfaces- we went with granite and are refinishing Saltillo. It’s not perfect but I’m just a natural materials person. You really can’t go wrong! But I think wood floors are always better for resale personally. The new vinyl is great though, and I would def do it in a bathroom, playroom, mud room, but don’t love it throughout the main house. Laminate is ok, but I don’t like the clickety clack sound when you walk on it, and I can almost always immediately tell something is laminate vs wood.
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Just a fellow consumer here, but just went through this same evaluation a couple of months ago. Two kids (13 and 11) and a dog (1 year old lab). We have laminate in the family room and it's pretty bullet proof. But we were replacing everything else down stairs and went through the wood/laminate/tile evaluation. We eventually decided on Adura tile from Mannington for the kitchen and powder room (tile look not wood) and Mirage engineered wood in the foyer, living and dining rooms. Actually swayed back and forth between laminate and wood where we eventually installed the wood. In the end it came down to wanting real wood in those rooms and we'll just have to see how it goes. My wife and I were just talking about this and had a laugh that we should have gone laminate because when the wood was just installed I had what you would call "new car" syndrome. Don't skip on the floor, don't place that on the floor, and donÂt even breathe on the floor. The anxiety issue is passing with time and we're happy with the decision and the look and feel of wood. When we get scratches (not if) we'll deal with them. Unfortunately you can't run this through an analysis and come up with an exact answer. In the end if you really wanted wood the laminate will probably be a disappointment. But, if you can't deal with the anxiety (at least initially) of wood not wearing as well then laminate may be the better choice. Our dog romps more in the kitchen and family room so that won't be seeing wood floors. We're not the most indecisive people but this took a while to finally come to a decision. A rather long post without any real direction but your not alone. Dom
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I think either will work there are huge differences in quality of both so do some research before committing . I have had good quality laminate in my last two homes and love it I had it everywhere in my last house except the bathroom in this one I have it in the powder room too . Kronotex alminate from Germany is what I had in my old house still looks good 17 yrs later. In our place now we have a laminate that looks like slate we have big dogs not one scratch in 10 yrs .We have that laminate on the mainfloor and LVP in the walk out basement because our dogs have a free run dog run and doggie door so easy to mop up when muddy feet walk through plus our grandkids are in and out of the pool all summer and they use the fridge and the bathroom in the walk out.I think wood floors are lovely but not with our lifestyle.
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Haha well I used the peel & stick stuff and had a concrete slab foundation. It stuck very well and there wasn’t any noise at all, unlike a floating floor. I don’t really have any experience with those. If you’re on a slab, make sure it’s clean and scrape up any drywall mud or paint - you’ll see the lumps through the vinyl. If you use peel & stick, consider using Henry vinyl primer - it will help them stick better. I also filled in the holes from the carpet tack boards that I pulled up and there were a few chips in the slab that I filled in. The hardest part for me was cutting around closet door frames but if you’re careful and good with a utility knife it’s not too difficult. You have to pay attention and make sure all of your cut edges are hidden under your baseboards. Make sure to get the first one straight and make sure to align the edges of each plank so that there aren’t any gaps. Pay attention to the pattern so that you have some randomness in the lengths of each plank, so that it looks more like properly-laid hardwood flooring. Good kuck!
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Tile worked better for my home. I tried some vinyl in a couple of rooms, a few years ago, but my old, large dogs had trouble getting purchase to rise. If you're on a slab do the moisture tests to determine if glue down or floating is the way to go. You don't want mold growing underneath or installation failure. If you choose tile, make sure they leave an expansion gap around the perimeter and don't grout up to the baseboards. Every person I interviewed did it that way as a matter of course. I removed the baseboards and reinstalled them, to ensure I had the gap and a nicer finish than shoe mould. I also told him where I wanted the movement joint where the flooring ran longer than 20-25 feet. I'm extending this tile into other areas, with the current reno, and have indicated where the expansion joints will go, because they never use them. For the kitchen, watch the clearances for any under-counter appliances. They might not fit! Tile raises the height of the floor more than LVP will. My project manager wanted to install my flooring after the cabinets, which wouldn't have worked out well for the tall tub dishwasher. I think he rolls his eyes over my requests, a lot. A helpful link about tile movement. The tile I chose is Mohawk Stage Pointe and has high texture and shading variation. The grout color is the darkest of the shades and hides any staining that might occur. The close-up pic is how it looks IRL. Second is of the room right after install. I love wool area rugs and they dampen sound nicely, as well as providing softness underfoot. Most of the floor in the second pic was covered by an 11x14.
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cpartist
5 years ago
The only thing with engineered wood is the top layer is fairly thin with plywood underneath, so you can’t really refinish them but most wont need to be since they have a 25-50 yr residential warranty.

Sorry but this is partly wrong. If you have a better quality engineered hardwood flooring with a higher wear layer, it can be refinished 1 or more times. Ideally you want a floor with at least a 3mm floor layer.

I had an engineered wood floor in my condo for 6 years and just put engineered wood flooring in my new house build. I've never had a problem with it.

I would not use LVP because I just don't feel it's a safe choice for us or the environment. Here's an article that explains why.
PRO
Oak & Broad
5 years ago
bf12345 , here is a helpful diagram of our Engineered flooring using a 4mm and 6mm wear layer. It allows for several finishings.
Educational Plank Flooring Examples · More Info
SirJohn
5 years ago
Wood will be the best for value/resale most likely, unless you are in a neighborhood that the comps all have laminate and vinyl anyway. Of course, if you plan on staying there a while, buy what you like, not what's trendy.

With that said, even though there are now "waterproof" laminates, I still do not trust them in the kitchen if they are made with mdf or hdf core. The "waterproofness" in those comes from sealing at the joints so that water on top won't soak into the support layer. However, if water/moisture were to get underneath the board, which is still possible (if not as common) in a kitchen when dealing with a floating floor, that support layer will still swell and crumble like any other laminate. Think dishwasher issue or any spill right next to a cabinet where laminate would normally have an expansion gap.

Vinyl is the best when dealing with moisture in a kitchen but its a matter of are you ok with the artificialness of going that route. I do like a good luxury vinyl plank, but it really is not quite the same as real wood.

Engineered wood that uses essentially plywood for its support is a better choice than laminate as plywood doesn't swell and deteriorate when exposed to moisture, although you do need to make sure a moisture issue that soaks into the wood is resolved before it turns into a problem (note that some cheaper engineered wood uses the same hdf or mdf core as laminate and I stay away from those if kitchen is intended use). In my limited experience, the aluminum oxide finish used in a lot of pre-finished engineered flooring does make refinishing or simple scratch repair more difficult regardless of how thick the top layer of wood is.

Flooring Help! wood vs vinyl vs laminate

Pam A

Comments (6)

Oak & Broad

Megan Wilkins

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cpartist

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