Is it water proof? Read the fine print and think about mold possibilities.

I specifically chose LVP in my remodel for our upstairs bedrooms and upstairs hallways because I have an old senior dog who occasionally does her business unnoticed, lots of humidity and messy teenagers. It has been awesome and we get lots of compliments on it. No it doesn’t look like wood to the “trained eye” but it feels good, is soundless and waterproof. We upgraded the underlayment and chose a very good LVP, comparable in price to engineered wood. I had carpet before and then engineered wood after that (we’ve been here 16 years) and had to change both of those due to the reasons I gave above. Now, to answer your question, I wouldn’t have used it downstairs in the main living space, I used porcelain wood look tile, our market dictates it and I plan on selling in the next year. But it’s absolutely perfect in bedrooms and I wouldn’t hesitate to use it if I were you...in fact if I renovate my next house I’d use it again. Find a good brand, see a big area of it in person, and touch and feel it. Also it might be worth checking around your area and seeing what others are using. Good luck.

LVP IMHO will be easier to clean. We're using it in our master and main bathrooms, stone look, https://coretecfloors.com/en-us/products/coretec-stone We have wood floors in the rest of the upstairs so don't want fake wood next to it. Coretec will send you samples for free. I've ordered 3 times and received 9 different samples as I kept changing my mind on other parts of the bathrooms. I'll give those extra samples to the local dealer when I'm done.

Talk with a local mom & pop flooring shop, and see what they recommend for you. :-) Mine talked me out of LVP, lol, even though it would've cost slightly more than wood-look tile (with itty bitty grout lines; I'm super picky).

I have it and it is not too good to be true. It is waterproof, virtually indestructible and beautiful. There is a slight "plasticky" feel but not as bad as the laminates from years ago. I have a small dog and children as well. It is located through my entire first floor except for bathrooms and I specifically wanted another kind of tile for design purposes in those areas.

We put CoreTec wood-look LVP on the main level of my Dad’s heavily used Rocky Mountains vacation home when we remodeled it for him 2 years ago. This was in the entry, kitchen, dining and living room. It‘s great. Looks beautiful, and feels really good under-foot. I can’t comment on tile-look flooring because I have no experience with that.

Regarding the water/mold comment above: Only a dummy would spill a glass of water, spill a bucket, ignore a DW leak, toilet leak, etc and just say “No biggie; the floors are waterproof. So let’s just ignore this spill/leak and go out to dinner. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

What these “waterproof” floors do is remove the panic and urgency. For us, when we’re up at my Dad’s house, having these floors removed any kind of panic if the dogs dribble from their water bowl, if someone fails to completely remove snow or mud from their boots before they make it to the bench, if there’s some messiness that makes it to the floor while cooking. It doesn’t make us lazy or careless about water. It just removes the urgency and gives you peace of mind that if it takes you a couple minutes to wipe things up, it’s not a big deal.

At my home, we have oak woodfloors throughout, including the kitchen, powder room and even the master bathroom. The kitchen is the worst. I’m constantly wiping up dribbles from the dogs, little spills and such that normally happen in a kitchen. I wish I had my Dad’s floors!

Regarding the “plastic” comment above. This was a collaborative remodel that I worked with my sisters and brother on. My Dad asked us to handle it for him, and he paid the GC. So I got outvoted on a few things. I was skeptical about the CoreTec floors. I just didn’t know anything about them. I got comfortable enough about it that I didn’t fight when I lost the vote. From that point forward, whenever I referred to the floors I called them our plastic floors (just to be snarky). As it turned out, my siblings were right. They’re great.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure your contract says something like this:

”All work will be done in accordance with local building codes, manufacturer’s instructions and applicable TCNA, ASID, and other applicable industry standards.“

@AJCN: Are you talking about the CoreTec Wood planks? If so, they’re actually real wood on top.

Speaking of wood floors in master bathrooms, check this out: Final Push

I sure hope not because we have a whole flat of Coretec waiting to be installed :-). I spent months (if not longer) researching and agonizing over floors. I love the look of wood, but we have two dogs and take them to the beach daily and I didn’t want to be a slave to the floor (stressing over water, sand, etc). Tile in the living areas & bedrooms is way too hard for us, nor is it really a great option for the area since it’s not particularly hot here. I considered carpets in the bedrooms but with 2 dogs (one who is a shedding fiend) decided against that... so we’ll see. It’s a very personal choice, obviously, so you need to think about your family, how you live, and what you want out of a floor.

Sammy, we used a CoreTec plank that has the vinyl wear layer, definitely not wood. It’s “printed.”

@D Walker wondering if you got it installed and how it's doing........and if you don't mind sharing, which one. .. you too @AJCN?

Salonva So far we are very happy with it... And after seeing the amount of dirt and sand our dogs manage to bring in every day I definitely don’t regret the decision. We got Coretec Plus XL in Everest Oak (extra long/wide planks). Including a pic although I actually don’t think it photographs very well, it looks a lot more gray in photos than it does in person...

Forgot to add, my husband did the installation and although he did a beautiful & meticulous job we discovered after the fact that you are really supposed to stagger the planks more randomly (vs the perfect stair step you see here). We were very careful about not repeating patterns but I totally missed the other recommendation until after it was over a third installed.

We love it! We used Coretech Versa, stone/concrete look as it is next to Kahr's White Oak, actual wood. DH used the Coretech threshold in the master, bottom photo, but there was a wood transition between the hallway and the hall bath which was glued down. I suggested he cut it at a 45 degree angle and I think it looks great! I didn't want alot of pattern in it as the countertop is Cambria Chatsworth, lots of movement. I wanted the countertop to be the star, all other elements to be complementary to the quartz.

thank you both for updating. The floors look great. Most importantly- it's so nice to read that you are both pleased. We have a messy dog too (very drooly) so that's a large part of why I am focused on LVP.

Our corgi is an old boy and drools a lot too, so can definitely relate :-). Actually even worse than that a few months ago we had some fireworks at night ( an unfortunately all too frequent random occurrence here, even on non-holidays) and he’s terrified of them and will often urinate. That night I thought I had found and cleaned it all up, but unfortunately I found a puddle the next morning near our front door that I had missed :-( That made me really happy we had LVP and not wood of any kind...

Talk about drool, we have a bloodhound puppy (4 months old) ! sheesh! We have not moved in yet, but I’m already so thankful we went this route after I found a puddle of pee hours later- didn’t even realize she had been in that room! So yes, for puppies, for senior dogs, for messy kids...yes yes yes!

ours is paradigm conquest citadel (spc) we did it everywhere except 2 of the bathrooms.

That’s exactly what we did M R - our 2 full bathrooms are tile and the rest of house is LVP. We didn’t want tile everywhere because it’s too hard to stand on for any length of time.

@M R loving the paradigm citadel! Are you happy with it so far? If you have any additional pics to share, I would love to see them!

We LOVE the citadel! so very happy with it

We love our LVP. We did Patcraft Timber Grove II in our entire lake house except for two bathrooms. My only regret is we didn’t do a wider plank. Still very happy with it. Just a warning, it does scratch very easily. I’ve used a tiny amount of cooking oil to remove minor scratches. But we have a long scratch that goes across four planks and it is there to stay.

I have Coretec and we drag furniture across it. The dog runs throughout the house. We have dropped things on it, I even had a chair I was standing on to adjust a window treatment slide out from under me. The chair was scraped but no damage at all to the floor.

Add us to the LVP fan club! We did Mannington ADURAFlex glue-down in the basement entry and basement bathroom. We did a wood look in the entry (Adura Heritage Timber) and marble look (Adura Legacy White with Gray and Pewter grout) with grout lines in the bathroom. We are exceptionally pleased with the first 6 months. Here are a few pictures:

@M R thank you for the pics! It’s beautiful!

My Dad is up in Colorado right now and told me everything looks perfect and beautiful. This house is heavily used. Skiers in winter and hikers in summer. He doesn’t have a good mudroom, so people enter from the front, side deck, or garage straight into the main area. So, even though people try to get all the gear, mud and snow off before entering, there’s inevitably some debris that winds up inside, especially with kids and dogs. There was an entire Boy Scout group in there last summer, huge family gatherings with kids and dogs all throughout the year. People come and go all summer. 3 years and the floors are perfect.

One thing to remember though: if you want to use a rug pad for an area rug you have to use a special kind. SIL was in charge of decorating so I don’t know the particulars, but I remember she had to order a special kind because the normal ones would create a stain or discoloration when they are in contact with the LVP.

Yes to the rug pad. I know they say latex or rubber is a huge NO No. I am trying to find out specifically what is recommended.

I’ll ask my SIL if she remembers what pad she ordered.

We are building new and putting LVP throughout the entire home with the exception of the master bath. Our friends did this and the home looks uniform and beautiful. Hope this helps.