Plastic does not last a lifetime. What utter crap. Take windows. Wood, single-pane windows will easily last 100 years with maintenance. Vinyl windows will last no more than 20. Hardwood floors can be refinished 3-4x and scraped and recoated innumerable times, also frequently lasting well over 100 years. LVP? 20 is a HUGE stretch. Try 5, 10 if you're lucky. People use plastic because they have been sold on the fact that it is "durable" and "low maintenance" and "cheaper," which may be true if you're speaking in terms of 5 or 10 years. But the costs - actual and environmental - are much higher when you acknowledge that its life cycle is much shorter than natural wood products that can last 3-10x longer. Then add in the fact that manufacturing new plastic on that shorter cycle is terrible for the environment, too, and the real costs become obvious. The idea that LVP is used in "high end" homes is an odd one. Where I live, it's only used in the basement of high-end houses, where hardwood obviously isn't suitable. It would be a huge red flag to see LVP anywhere on the main floors of a house, even under $1m.

I have bought and installed $3000.00 worth of smartcore pro 1 year ago in my unheated cabin since it said good for extreme temperatures down to 25 degrees below zero and Lowes said it was the best and only flooring that will work for me. The floor started to seperate in December 2020 at 19 degrees. Lowes said they can not help me and to file a claim with Shaw. Shaw sent an independent inspector to see flooring in March 2021. The so called independant inspector came and pretty much told me that his job is to find things to void the warranty so no claims get paid. He crawled on my floor throughout all rooms with a 6 foot level and found one high spot on my l floor that tilted his level uneven. I told him every house built has a joyce that is a little high or a little low. He agreed and said that he goes through million dollar brand new homes and always finds the same. He measured the space at edges an said some spots were too close to wall. I told him nothing expanded or contracted and its the locking that has failed. He also said the floor molding was touching the floor and that will also void a warranty. I told him there are no houses where the wall molding is not touching the floor and that no one keeps a gap below the molding. He agreed but said even if my floor did have more spacing and wall molding had a gap under it that Shaw would still void my claim since he found a joyce high spot. He left and I never had a returned call since March. I even offered to lift my floor and pay the $1.49 per square foot and to have it reinstalled by anyone of thier choice to prove it was not an installation problem and it is a locking failure problem with the flooring. I am a tipical hard working person that saved for two years to buy the best flooring made for my conditions. Shaw or Lowes have not even called me to offer me a solution or any compensation towards my $3000.00 invested. I do not know if my floor will continue to worsen but I do know it will not get better. I told the inspector that if Shaw really wanted to improve thier product that this was the perfect chance. An unheated cabin that temperatures go down to a couple of degrees below zero in the coldest part of the year. I have 8 rental proerties, a house and 2-cabins that I wanted to do all over with this flooring and now I can not trust Shaw flooring or Shaw customer service to correct the failure. My cousin is a contrator that build homes and works with hundreds of other contracors and said that he will no longer use Shaw flooring after he sees what happened to me. SHAME ON YOU SHAW FOR NOT FIXING YOUR FAILED FLOOR LOCKING PROBLEM. I or my cousin will never buy another Shaw product unless this is fixed by compensation or what I prefer which is to lift and reinstall new flooring by anyone of Shaws choice. The cabin next to me installed a cheap laminate flooring from Pergo at 1/2 the price and it has not failed under the same temperatures. I am out $3000 but you are out hundreds of thousands of dollars when contractors will not trust your products since you chose not to do the right thing.***SHAME ON YOU SHAW FOR NOT FIXING YOUR FAILED FLOOR LOCKING PROBLEM. Tim Sommers Mongomery, Pa. 17752 (570-220-8070)

I would love to see a lovely "white washed" oak looking vinyl in this space. The teal counter tops should be able to pull together the "wood" tones of the cabinets and the "soft grayish" tones of a white wash. Something like this is an example of what I'm thinking of: https://www.armstrongflooring.com/residential/en-ca/vinyl-flooring/luxury-vinyl-tile/luxe-plank-with-fastak-install/item/A6716.html If you can find the right vinyl plank, you should be able to get this to run throughout the space (including bathrooms, entrances and utility rooms). If you cannot find one that works nicely with the counters, I would suggest you leave the kitchen floor in place (it is the PERFECT match to the counters...you won't find anything better) and replace the carpets with a wood-toned vinyl. Now...just for fun, these homes are often built with "carpet" in mind. That means the subfloor (whatever it is...) if possibly the lowest of the low in terms of quality. That means it is often wavy or as far away from flat as you can get. Again, this is always the case...but it happens so often that you need to ASSUME there is a problem before you rip out the carpet. Once the carpet is gone, you will need to have the flatness and the subfloor SURFACE (the material that is sitting underneath the pad) assessed for vinyl. If you FLOAT the vinyl, then you only need to deal with "flatness". If you GLUE the vinyl then you have to deal with the type of MATERIAL as well. And that's where the headaches begin. Many times there is fibre board or luan sitting under carpet in a trailer (regardless of how well built it is). Both of these materials are "OK" underneath a floating floor, but they often have to come out if you want to glue down. And then the "flatness" has to be dealt with. Vinyl HATES wonky subfloors. And I mean HATES it. The subfloor has to be SMOOTH (vinyl telegraphs things like staples, staple holes, seams, etc. to the surface). And to get fibre board or luan smooth is a nightmare. They don't like "patch" material. Again, this could mean they need to come out and be replaced with something that can handle patch, etc. Please be prepared for some ++prep costs to deal with whatever is underneath that carpet. Whomsoever is doing the work for you will need to WALK INTO your home and pull back the carpet BEFORE they offer a quote. And the quote should include a range for the prep. It should look like $1-$4/sf for subfloor preparation (the range will depend on where you are and how expensive it is to hire local labour).

Good bamboo (ie. the $12/sf price point) is very dense. Any wood floor can dent with heals. It depends on the size of the heal (is it a 'Queen Mum' wide-body heal or is it a 3" stiletto?) and the size of the human wearing it (the movie 'Kinky Boots' comes to mind). A 250 lb man in stilettos is going to put very big dents into pretty much any wood floor he walks on....the pounds per square inch come into play when dents are created. A bad bamboo or bad engineered hardwood is going to dent easily. They are perfectly fine on stairs. They are still rigid wood-like floors. In fact cork does very well on stairs (the softest hardwood in the world!!!). The FINISH is what scratches. The FINISH is what takes all the abuse. A bad factory finish will scratch like the dickens...and look like it needs to be refinished inside of 15 years. That's one of the differences between 'good' bamboo and 'bad' bamboo. A high-end bamboo product is going to cost you some SERIOUS money. I'm not kidding. It is HEAVILY engineered. In fact it can be 30% adhesive (glue...holding the grass together). It can be carbonized. It can have upto 15 coats of UV cured Aluminum Oxide urethane applied to it. Just because it is all produced in China doesn't mean it is cheap/cost effective to purchase. It isn't. The independent importers are very specific about who they source from (a bad batch can bankrupt them) and what type of product they sell. All of that 'human input' has a cost. The mature bamboo (7+ years old) is expensive. It is hard to harvest. It is harder to process (because it is so thick and strong). It requires VERY EXPENSIVE adhesives (allowed in the EU = darn near Zero VOC levels = very expensive). And the finish (15 layers) take ++ time to create and cure and stack, etc. Keeping it climate controlled is SUPER IMPORTANT = very expensive. It is required at time of creation, during transport (on the ship) and when it arrives in port/warehouse facility. And it is HEAVY. Heavy = dense = expensive to ship around the world. And THAT'S why $12/sf bamboo is worth it. But the $4.99/sf cr@p isn't. A solid white oak 3" plank (character grade) = $4.99/sf and WELL worth it.