I have vinyl plank in my walkout basement I have 3 huge dogs with free access to a dog run in all kinds of weather and kids in and out of a pool all summer a wood floor would have been destroyed long ago , our flooring is 13 yrs old an still looks like new. we have laminate on the main floor for the same reason it stands up to all the stuff thrown at it. I think since resale is not a huge issue with you I would do the floor that makes the most sense for your life . I have listened to clients who wanted wood floors and big dogs and they have all regretted the choice if that helps.

Go for the floor that will give the the most for the least. If vinyl (a good vinyl = $4-$6/sf) is your budget cap, then stick to it. It has the toughness your family needs RIGHT NOW. If it looks great in 10+ years, then leave it alone and sell the house with it in place.

Just remember: you MUST include subfloor preparation costs into your calculations. If you are removing carpet, sheet vinyl and/or ceramic tile you will have to look at preparing the subfloor to read as 'flat'. Vinyl click together floors HATE uneven substrates. And the one thing all of those floors hide (once they have been removed) is wavy/wonky surfaces. Carpet is HORRIBLE for this.

I always tell my clients to expect to pay $2-$4/sf ($2-$3/sf is more common than $4) for the subfloor preparation. Cost of material and labour to install is extra.

We faced this decision in our Florida home. DH disliked the idea of LVP and really wanted to make hardwood work. In our particular case, our moisture level was way too high.

Finally, we were interviewing a contractor and he had us look at a client’s house.

We liked the look of the LVP and decided to go with it.

Added bonus is that it was so much cheaper. We were doing an entire house.

We went with Cortec. So many options available.

Gone are the days of the cheap looking vinyl floors.

In our home up north we have hardwood. I honestly don’t mind the dog scratches, you have to get down low to see. But, it didn’t hold up as well in the kitchen.

You will love living carefree.

Go with LVP. A lot of people look down on it, but it's a great product for what it is. It will never look or feel the same as real hardwood, but it's durable, affordable, and these days a lot of it looks pretty good. It sounds like its the best option for your family, don't second guess yourself.

I keep hearing all this praise for LVP and I want to like it. It would be ideal for us (not so much the scratches but the drippy drinking dog).

Eld and others who have what they love, can you give more details beyond the brand? I am sure quite a few of you have very good taste and I feel like I just haven't seen the nicer stuff. I am interested in wood look vinyl. (not sure of tone but not gray. ) I would love some more details to search out the nice stuff.

LVP can look good but it needs to be wall-to-wall. It is not something you put in a room then have it meet up to tile, hardwood or carpet It will just look like plastic against other flooring. IMO But uniformed through house it does look nice IMO.

I sure hope it works out ok because we have 60 boxes of coretec sitting in our living room waiting to be installed :-). It’s a very personal choice... I spent months researching flooring options and decided for us and our lifestyle the LVP just seemed like the best option. We have 2 dogs and live near the beach so water & sand is just part of our daily life, and I didn’t want to spend my life stressing over the floor. But that is me and that choice won’t be the same for everyone...

My partner is a wood floor snob but even a few times he has been fooled by a few LVP floors. It sounds like LVP flooring will be your friend right now and is within your budget. Plus, if you are in a "kids" neighborhood, the next owner of your house may appreciate that you did install LVP. I wouldn't concern yourself about resale as when that time comes who knows what will be popular then- wall to wall carpeting anyone??

We have hard wood now and will probably go with LVP on our new home. I love hard wood, but we've only had it 5 years and it already shows wear. I'm sure there are types that are more durable than what we have, but it dents and scuffs easily. We also have a few cracked boards. With the kid + cost + anxiety about damage, we'll go with LVP and forget about it until it needs to be replaced.

I wouldn't have it joining real wood floor but I was considering it going up to tile floor in kitchen. So this would be possibly entry, living room and dining room. I am undecided whether I would bring it into the powder room.

I would love to know which ones have "almost" fooled you thinking it is hardwood?

Do you think it looks off next to large tile?

Take a look at some of the Karndean products. I just bought some from their Rigid Core line to have installed, and they have gorgeous realistic patterns. Their products aren't trendy though if that is what you are looking for. The saleswoman at the place I bought it told me that the only reason their store carries this line is because the owner of the store (who really know his stuff) was in a restaurant and was fooled into thinking these were real wood floors. He finally asked what brand it was, and that's why he decided to carry the line. It is one of the pricier products.

We have the LVP running into the porcelain ceramic tile that is on the bathroom floors. I think that's a fine solution.

thank you so much for all the great comments - I feel like it is going to be the right choice for us. If we do LVP we can run it throughout the main part of the house for one seamless flooring. There will be sub-floor issues as we have cork flooring in the LR that is glued down and will be difficult to get up so I will budget accordingly. I will definitely look for a higher end product for the best quality.

We had high end cortec LVT installed. Make sure installers know what they’re doing! Ours are now needing to be removed because they didn’t level floor and you can hear it and see it...would eventually lead to the edges warping. Also, ours is a medium tone. Looks fantastic when cleaned but can see foot smudges as soon as anyone walks on it. Can’t keep it looking clean. I know others have had same issue.

I have Coretec Hayes Oak on the main floor and bedrooms. I actually have it installed over my golden oak hardwoods on the first floor bc my hardwoods were so damaged in the kitchen and places where the dog peed, water leaked. it wasn't worth refinishing bc there was so much damage. And they were the narrow pieces that I was tied of bc the dirt would wedge between the blanks and so hard to clean. I love my floors and they are easy to clean. I do miss the gloss of a hardwood although I have heard people are going with matte. But they are so easy to clean and so durable. I have dropped a heavy kettlebell on it, no damage. I had something stuck on the bottom of pantry door and the door dragged on the floor, no scratches. My hardwoods had a ton of deep scratches on it you can see in the before golden oak hell kitchen!

i chose the Coretec Hayes Oak bc it wasn't as patterny as some that I notice online and it is longer and wider. I even have the stair treads in them. I also recommend going light bc so many people complain about dark LVP showing off paw prints and showing dirt.

I highly recommend that you buy a box of whatever you THINK you want in your house. The sample board is too small and you'll never get the full view.

I did spend a lot of time looking online at real life pics just to narrow down what I wanted. I would search the brand, the color on Facebook and come up with pics of the brand in a person's home that wasn't interior designed. It won't really help you get the full view of the color until you get a box. Hayes Oak on a sample board looks really almost white. It doesn't look like that when it's laid out. But you can at least see which floor has patterns you might not like when it's over a lot of square footage.

While I spent $300 on the cartons I but didn't use, it was worth it b/c while it's cheaper than hardwoods, it's a big investment. And I think b/c it's not real wood, it is more important to make sure the color, the variation, the patterns work for you. You can't sand it down to make it another color, so if you don't like it you're stuck until removal (although I did come across someone that used a stain over the vinyl but I can't imagine that holding up well),

I had a small mom-and-pop flooring shop come out to the house to take measurements and give me estimates, a couple years ago.

He talked me out of LVP (I was looking at CoreTec), because I want a dark floor, and he promised me that the dark floor would show every scratch (all of my common areas face south, with one room having both south and east exposure). One of the sample boards I brought home had a huge scratch on it, that I just couldn't ignore, so I was already hesitant. He told me that manufacturers don't really mean "kid proof, pet proof, water proof," they just mean "water proof." (In my situation, 6 kids + 160# dog = Serious, visible cosmetic damage on dark LVP floors.)

He recommended wood look tile for my project, which was ever-so-slightly less expensive than the LVP. He confidently assured me that he could get tiny grout lines (I expressed skepticism when he mentioned the tile, saying that I wasn't sure if he could get the grout lines narrow enough for my overly-picky self, lol).

With light or medium tone LVP, I'm sure that seeing micro scratches is a total non-issue, but I wanted to mention the dark problem, just in case. :-)

I think yours looks beautiful- really! I know that if I do wood look lvp I really want a medium to light oaky kind of color. In our first house, which was built in the late 70's it had that yellowish oak color (which if I remember correctly, is all that there was at the time. ) To me it was just wonderful to live with, did not show dirt or scratches. The dark floors look very rich and lovely but I think I really would prefer something like you have.

You mentioned missing the gloss and I think that is what is holding me back. I do know that more and more people with hardwood are seeking out a matte finish so maybe it's going to be the newer look and it will be fresher and what appeals.

I keep hearing all the love for the LVP and I want to love ti too- just maybe have not seen the right one. Editing to add, the ease of installation is a big draw for me. In our last house I put in the wood look ceramic/porcelain tile in a bathroom and I loved it but to have it through the house here just seems to be a bit too much. (also we are NOT in Florida!!!)

Thanks @salonva! It's def. a pretty floor and overall I really like it, esp. since it so far seems indestructible. Perhaps the wood flooring and finishes now are much better than my old ones, but I lived with so much damage with the hardwoods, that I just didn't want to go down that path. My home is a typical colonial; it's not a high end home and based on the pics of my neighborhood houses that go on the market, I think I won't have a problem with a resale. I will probably live here until I die anyway! For me, I just wanted a floor that was about as impervious to scratches, damage as possible. If it holds up like for another 15 years, I'll be very happy.

@D Walker which Coretec plank did you choose? Congrats! Yeah, I think living near the beach, you made the right choice. I'm always on realtor.com and I see a lot of LVP now. It's been 4 months for me and I've yet to find a scratch on it.

@One Devoted Dame You are so right about dark LVP. Hell, dark wood too.

Deann We chose Coretec Plus XL Everest Oak - so it’s the wider planks. It’s a light color - with some white & a hint of gray. I really didn’t want gray but I also didn’t want something that just looked like a light oak because our cabs are red birch, so it seemed like a decent compromise. Guess we’ll see :-). I hope so because I spent months looking and agonizing over it....

Deann - I just saw your pics (somehow missed that post). Your Hayes Oak looks beautiful... that was in of the ones I had considered as well but just decided on the Everest in our space and with our cabs.

• @eld6161 Which Coretec did you go with? I have Hayes Oak (see pics above). It's only been 4 months but I put it throughout the main floor and bedrooms (even have the stair tread Hayes). I think I love it in the bedrooms the most. And I think that's actually where it looks more like real wood. The runs aren't long enough in a bedroom, and you have furniture over much of the rooms that it doesn't have the patterny look.

Deann, we did the same, Hayes Oak!

home.

Looking at a few planks, it’s hard to judge.

if you're not selling for 10 years, get what you want now. let the next homeowner choose what they want to do.

my sister put laminate flooring in the family bathroom about 10 years ago. that household has four people that are HARD on stuff. the rest of the bathroom is kind of falling apart, but those floors still look good. I'm not even sure if she chose a luxury brand or not.

her only regret is that she chose a dark color. it's beautiful but shows every single bit of dust and dog hair and looks dirty much faster than a light color would.

@D Walker I love Everest! Make sure you post your install pics! It's going to look great!

@eld6161 It looks fantastic! Your cabinets are like mine! I didn't have the good fortune of seeing it in someone's homes, but I remember seeing it in pics and loving it! There's a thread here where someone was kind enough to give her review of it. I was almost about to pull the trigger on Hayes but was worried up until install how light it was. But the thread and the pics made me feel better. It's light, but when you see it down it looks warmer.

Deann, quick picture. I’m still waiting for the backsplash tiles. I’m going with a 3x12 gray ceramic.

DWalker, start a new thread for your reveal.

BF I agree that dark floors, no matter what material isn’t a good choice for low maintenance.

The funny thing is with this pattern, dirt blends in. It’s on,y now that I know all the nooks and crannies that I bend down and wipe a particular spot.

And, here’s my guy, no damage here!

@eld6161 your kitchen is beautiful! And yes, I agree. It really conceals dirt well. I do sometimes wish it wasn't embossed; but at the same time, the embossing probably conceals scratches if there are any! I do love that in one light, there's a bit of a warmth to the floor. But if I go in a room with more light, the floor has a very light gray/white look to it! It's a chameleon of color for sure!

yes, the embossing conceals flaws and helps them look more real. I remember in the 90s when I first started seeing laminate everywhere and it looked so awful. those floors were disconcertingly smooth, and the colors / patterns were too homogeneous. they've come a long way with designs!

in fact, when I see a new floor that's real wood, sometimes I think it's fake because it looks too perfect, lol.

I'm looking at a brand called Titan that my designer recommended. anyone familiar with this brand?

http://www.amestile.com/media/wysiwyg/pdf/productsheets/titan55/Titan55ProductSheet.pdf

It looks like the Titan 5.5 is a 5.5mm (hence the name) thick vinyl plank. It has 12mil wear layer. That is 'ho-hum' when it comes to toughness. It is 'good enough' for residential (1-2 people in the home...NO pets) but it is not a very tough finish. Many home owners who have used a vinyl with 12mil wear layer have been disappointed.

In today's flooring world, the consensus is: 20mil wear layer = light commercial = exactly what is needed for today's North American homeowner.

The Titan 5.5 is not cheap. The cost is roughly the same as many CoreTec products. I'm sure your designer can find something in the same visual with a better wear layer.