Hardwood on 1st Floor and Laminate on Second, similar or different ?

4 years ago

We have hardwood on the first floor and plan to install laminate on the second floor , replacing our crumbling carpet. We are debating if we should should choose the laminate that resembles closely to the hardwood (hickory tan) or can it be totally different. Any suggestions are appreciated .

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Comments (4)

littlebug zone 5 Missouri
4 years ago
Don’t use laminate that looks like already-present hardwood. It makes it seem so fake by comparison. Use something completely different.
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Sina Sadeddin Architectural Design
4 years ago
What are the stairs going to be?

Hickory is a pretty busy floor, and doesn't look great in faux wood options IMO. If matching with real hardwood isn't an option you'll want to look for something that COMPLIMENTS the existing floor but isn't trying to match it exactly. Hickory has a lot of tones though so you can pull a color from it to go.
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I repriced the cost to finish the downstairs all in wood and it's more than double what I initially stated but at this point going with something other than hardwood would really look like a hack. I do have some wood leftover from my kitchen and a friend has a few cases from a leftover job also so I'll save a little there. The more I think about it the more it makes sense to complete this with hardwood. The only other choice is to just throw down carpet when I'm ready to sell but I hate doing something half-azzed. I'd rather do it right once and be done with it. I'd be wasting my time trying to cheap out on this. Thank you
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everdebz
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
Idk about the house, but is the window lighting very different from the 1st floor? ...does it have high ceilings and that feel?

if it's darker upstairs, go lighter some?
SJ McCarthy
4 years ago
The flooring on the upper floor (aka bedrooms) can be different from the flooring in the main/public areas. I would pick a colour that is present in the Hickory wood sitting on your main floor and see if I could find a laminate that falls into that colour story. This will add continuity without competition (as little bug and Sina point out).

Now the two issues you are about to face: the STAIRS (dun dun DUUUUUUN!!!) and the NOISE. Sigh. Carpets get rid of a tremendous amount of noise. Carpet keeps noise from escaping OUT of a bedroom as well as prevent it from ENTERING a bedroom.

Here's what I suggest. Go ahead and rip out the carpet in the upstairs and then LIVE with noise/echo of the subfloor for a week. At that point you will either feel you have an INCREDIBLY well built house (unlikely but always a possibility) OR you will discover how LOUD everything/everybody really is (99% chance of this happening).

And that's where you will start your 'carpet replacement' discussion. I have always said a cork floating floor (installed just like laminate) is a great carpet replacement. It is warm, soft and quiet. It deals with 80%-90% of the noise that carpet deals with. It is a 'like for like' replacement for carpet.

Laminate is not. Laminate is a hard, rigid surface just like your subfloor (that you found to be quite loud). An acoustic underlayment can be used (QuietWalk Pro or 6mm cork underlay will do the trick) to keep noise transfer from "up down" noise. But it won't help with noise exiting the bedrooms, moving down the hallway and entering another bedroom. Only cork and carpet prevent that.

Once you have chosen you material and the underlay thickness you can then tackle the stairs. This gets HORRIBLY tricky. I'm assuming the carpet is on the stairs as well?

Right, now we have to keep the stairs to code so that the height of the rise is EQUAL all the way to the TOP FLOOR! That means you have to adapt all the tread/risers to match the FINAL height of the floor+underlayment. Zoinks.

And I haven't even TOUCHED on the floor leveling needed once the carpet is removed. Carpets hide the WORST subfloors in the world. These subfloors are thin, wavy, pitched and are of low-grade materials (often fibre board sits on top...which does NOT like patching material).

To get a rigid floor (floating or otherwise) you will need to level that subfloor. That's going to eat up $2-$4 per square foot ($2/sf is quite common...$4/sf is not likely but it has happened in REALLY sh!tty builds). And now that the subfloor has been leveled, you have to reassess the stairs.

Or you can replace carpet with carpet. This may not be ideal if there are allergy suffers or asthmatics in the house...but it is always an option when replacing existing carpet.

Hardwood on 1st Floor and Laminate on Second, similar or different ?

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littlebug zone 5 Missouri

Sina Sadeddin Architectural Design

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everdebz

SJ McCarthy

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