We are researching replacing our tile floor in kitchen, breakfast room and family room, too. I am fine with tile as it accomplishes everything I wanted -- waterproof, scratch resistant, etc. However, I HATE the grout and now I have several cracked tiles (another story). I already tried hiding with rugs. That bought me 6 years. I, too, want to try to avoid demo because of allergies and the cost. I have been researching doing an epoxy coat over the floors. Done by same people that do garages, but a different finish. Does anyone have any experience with doing an epoxy floor over tile? I would diamond grind the floor then 2 base coats then 1 lava flow coat. Thank you so much for the great ideas and I empathize.

If anyone is considering using porcelain tile, my best advice is to make sure your installer is a FLOORING PROFESSIONAL. On the advice of our "contractor" we allowed him to to lay porcelain tile that looks like hardwood when installed properly in our foyer, hallway, powder room, family room and kitchen. He had 5 months to do this job while we were away; first mistake by the way, but we had come to trust him because of previous jobs that were satisfactory. When we arrived home, our floors were like walking on corduroy: uneven in heights, and with big holes in the epoxy grout. We learned from a neighbor that he himself had not laid the floors but had two young men coming in while we were away. Our fridge didn't fit all the way back into its spot because of uneven tiles, our kitchen sink drain was plugged almost solid with some kind of building residue, there was dust everywhere and you can see by the attached photos that the job was nothing other than a $16,000.00 mess! He agreed it was unacceptable and even though we had to endure 4 more weeks of ripping out and reinstalling on a job that should have been complete, we had no choice. Because he "didn't have time" in the foreseeable future to do it himself, we allowed his nephew to redo it with his supervision. The finished product while considerably more level, is still about 10% uneven and the epoxy grout that he didn't properly remove while going along, left a horrible grout haze that has cost us several hundred dollars since to try and remove. We did report this contractor to the BBB but all he did was change his company name and move to another city here in Ontario. My caveat: ask to see pictures of rooms done in porcelain that they have done before, follow up with a phone call to the owner of those rooms and

never trust ANYONE to work on your home if you are not nearby to oversee the project.

Just changed out the flooring in our home to US Floors Coretec Plus, 5" engineered vinyl planks in the Carolina Pine wood look. We chose this wood tone to blend in with all the woods we have in our home.

Did not want the upkeep of wood even though I love it and I really do not like the laminate warranty of usually 15 years residential use. I do not plan on replacing my flooring in my lifetime of 20 to 25 years. It is a quite floor since the under side of the planks are cork. Coretec has a limited lifetime warranty and is a floating click together floor which I like in planks. http://www.usfloorsllc.com/product-category/coretec-plus/5-plank/

We installed it everywhere except two of the bathrooms which had ceramic tile and the living room which we kept the teakwood parquet since it was in excellent shape....about 2000 sq. ft. It looks great and requires only a swiffer and damp mop with water to clean it up. They offer lots of wood and tile looks

choose from.

Oops....."quiet" floor

May seem obvious, but if you're going to floor over, move out any appliances you can first and make sure you'll indeed have clearance. Didn't realize it when we bought the house, but the Bozos who floored over our kitchen didn't, and now we have huge problems trying to do maintenance and cleaning, especially around the 25 sq. ft. refrigerator.

Lisa, did you decide what to do to your kitchen floor? I am in the early process of having Coretec Plus LVT wood look planks, as well as marble-look tiles, installed at my house this week. I considered every imaginable product, based on feel underfoot, low maintenance, durability, and ease of cleaning. Its always a big and costly decision.

Hi! Had my Coretec Plus installed in the basement about a week and a half ago. I love the look of it.

I chose a lighter Coretec as I'm trying to keep the basement light. Living in Ohio, the winters are too long. (Above)

It looks good, jozicad15. I love it with the wall paint color.

I really like the Ivory Coast Oak coretec you had installed labdunbar. I'd love to see the room all finished. Still waiting in carpeting, fireplace mantel & finishing touches for my basement!

Labdunbar - who was your installer? From your name, I'm assuming you're in the Denver area - is that correct? I'm in the area and in the market for flooring when we do the kitchen.

I bought our Coretec from Carpet Exchange Southwest, on Coal Mine in Littleton. I am using the installation crew recommended by Ginger, the sales person. I'll ask the installers if they also install outside CE. I have about 1600sf of Coretec going in.

I did NOT want to remove carpet, glued down vinyl and a bit of oak myself. Yukky is right. I did not want to move furniture. Mine is all-inclusive and I'm loving the fact that I just had to purge, declutter, and pack up stuff, and that someone else is doing the scraping, grinding, cutting, etc. If I had to do it, if would take forever.

labdunbar_denver Yes! I moved all furniture out. So was easy to work. We were lucky to have leveled smooth floor. So I did not glue planks. I used floating. One day per room was floor installation.

eageree, the Denver installation crew is A+ Flooring, Angelo Romero is a co-owner with Juan, and a third man is part of the crew. Email: aremodel4u@yahoo.com. Phone: 303-819-7717. They were always here when they said they would be here (9AM), worked diligently until 6:00PM or later, cleaned up at the end of each day, and were professional in their dealings with me. I was here during the install and watched. I believe they installed the floor correctly. Now how the floor will hold up... only time will tell.

So far, 5 days in, I really like it. Above photo is living/dining room.

@labdunbar_denver: that is a handsome "travertine look" floor. That's the way it is supposed to look for a very, very long time. CoreTech has some impressive numbers (nice acoustics, very low off-gassing, excellent water resistance, etc).

So far we are hearing that after 2-3 years of installs (this is a very new product) the CoreTech is doing what it is supposed to do: look great, wear great, survive "life".

labdunbar - thanks for the info. will be checking into CoreTech.

Cancork Floor, our installation team has put this floor in several homes, one of which was a father-in-law's bathroom two years ago. He said it still looks great and is holding up well. Regarding the acoustics, I love that it's quieter than hardwood, tile and laminate floors. My house had the most of this product that the crew had ever installed. It's in every room except master bedroom and office.

labdunbar - Your marble is especially nice looking. I just spent the last couple hours reading the other thread about CoreTec - the one that started a year ago. Kinda concerned about sun exposure in my application as a french door may be in the plan. But will definitely keep this product in mind. Maybe by the time I get around to this project, there will be more improvements in the product.

Eageree, I have an East-West exposure at 5600 ft above sea level and, as you know, we get 300 plus days with sunshine here, plus we have big windows. But I do manage the exposure in the house as best I can with window coverings to keep it cooler in the summer. That will help with the exposure of sun on the floor too.

Lisa, it looks gorgeous!

Fabulous!!

beautiful! - add a feeling of warmth.

Frost, what color Coretec flooring did you use?

Hi Lisa. What was the name of the wood tile you used? Inlove it!

We had Coretec Plus Ivory Coast Oak installed in every room on our first floor. I'd been torn between that and porcelain wood-look planks. Our contractor Carlos Mercado said that the porcelain with the required hardi-backer underneath would be too heavy for our 2nd floor and I wanted the same flooring throughout. This and the fact that when I put the samples of both side-by-side and stood on them, the Coretec was much warmer and more comfortable to stand on. We've been undergoing major renovations and are just now getting to install the Coretec upstairs. Here are a few photos from downstairs.

I fully agree on Coretec Plus being warmer and softer underfoot than tile. We also used Ivory Coast Oak upstairs in my daughters' bedrooms because they are smaller rooms and the floor looks very nice with the furnishings. We installed Antique Marble Tile LVT everywhere but the master bedroom. I love how my furniture looks with this floor.

Does the Ivory Coast Oak from coretec have any gray undertones? I'm thinking of using this in my living that has little natural light. I recently painted my walls Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray and while I absolutely love this color, I feel it may be a tad too dark for my living room. Dorian Gray is a mid tone gray, one shade darker than the ever popular Mindful Gray color. I figured Ivory Coast Oak would lighten things up and make it feel more airy.

Ivory Coast Oak will definitely lighten thing up in the room. My daughters' bedrooms, previously carpeted in light taupe-y color, now have Coretec Plus Ivory Coast Oak and wow, did it improve the lighting. Yes, there is/was lots of natural light in the AM. But still, the floor was a great improvement and made their tiny rooms feel more airy. One room has lighter purple walls. The floor takes on wall hues, depending on the type of light.. One has white walls and it is a neutral tone on the floor. I don't have pics on my phone now, but I'll post some when I get home. There may be some pics I posted earlier in this thread, too.

Thanks for the reply. Do you feel this flooring would compliment a mid tone gray like Dorian Gray? A lot of the houzz pics of this paint aren't accurate, it's actually a very true gray. If anything it can have a very slight brown undertone at certain times of the day in my house. It sucks that the samples of Coretec are so misleading, because the planks vary in color so much.

I can't specifically comment about SW Dorian Gray because I've never used it and have seen only a paint chip of it. I just painted my family room Sherman Williams Essential Gray (medium gray), my hallways SW Hint of Mist (very pale gray) and I bought SW Grayish for several other walls, including the walls adjacent to the 2 bedrooms with Ivory Coast Oak floors. These 2 photos are the SAME floor, one is a wide shot, one closeup. My camera sees it one way, my eyes see it another way. Walls and furniture are white-ish. Lighting is LED overhead and 12 noon sunshine coming in window to the left of the bed.

These 2 pictures are from a bedroom with purple walls. The Ivory Coast Oak floors DO take on a hue from these walls, as well as from the southern and eastern sunshine coming from 3 windows and from the one overhead incandescent fixture. Your results will vary according to your lighting (Kelvin temperature), your window exposures or, in your case, from any adjacent space lighting. I CAN say this floor brightens a room. I do feel it has gray tones in some but not all planks. I hope this helps. My daughters love their floors that went in last summer.

mlgreen, one more post... this is a photo of a corner of my family room that is painted SW Essential Gray, and flooring is Coretec Plus Antique Marble 18x24 tile. I love the wall color and flooring, but in this case, the floors don't seem to take on a gray hue, probably due to a lot of window light.

This is a picture of the entire room with Essential Gray. Keep in mind that there is a wall of windows and a sliding glass door that let in light on this Antique Marble Tile LVT floor. And again, my eyes interpret the color of this floor differently than the camera photographs it.

Good luck on making your decision.

I am almost set on ordering Ivory Coast Oak LVP, but I have a little anxiety on the texture in the floor. There are ridges in it, and I'll be installing it in a kitchen. Does anyone have problems with it being dirty or still looking dirty because of not having a completely flat LVP surface?

clarification--the ridges to which I'm referring are on the top surface of the vinyl plank. thanks.

Hazel, on the thread, "Anyone Use Coretec?" there are at least 2 people who installed Ivory coast Oak in their whole house. You might ask at that thread. I can't answer this question because the ivory coast oak is in bedrooms at our house.

Jozicad15 Which color CoreTec is in your above photos? It's perfect! Love it!

@jozicad15 Your photos are beautiful! Do you remember the name of the CoreTec color you have?

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