Flooring in common living areas and bedrooms - suggestions please?

6 years ago

My husband and I live in a home we bought 19 years ago and said we were going to redo the flooring then. Then we got pets and lives and ... you understand. Now we have an empty nest. The kid has moved out and all the pets have passed away and we don't want to live there more than another 2 or 3 years.

We live in mid-Missouri. (According to our city Chamber of Commerce, the median income is $58,434 and the median home price is around $160,000. My guess is our house will sell at about $135,000 after it's all said and done. The house is a split-foyer, raised ranch built in the 1970's. We're in a good neighborhood but nothing fancy, near schools etc. It has a living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two baths up (one of those the master) and a family room, office, powder room, laundry room and garage down. About 5-6 years ago we consulted a realtor who advised us our house is not the type to put granite counters and hardwood floors in and suggested laminate counters and re-carpeting with builder-grade carpet right before we list. Everything is wall to wall except we put tile in the kitchen and dining, but they installer did a horrible job and our tile has cracked and just looks horrible, so it has to go too. If it matters, we're about to put in hickory cabinets (already bought - they look like the ones in the picture, though that is not my house) and laminate counters. https://st.hzcdn.com/fimgs/4b4135980fbe5dbb_6027-w500-h333-b0-p0--.jpg

I recently walked into a flooring store and was looking at what I thought was laminate. Turned out it was luxury vinyl planks (LVP). What do you think of LVP through a whole house (except bathrooms - tile there is nice), including bedrooms, stairs and office? There are two other alternatives. Just LVP in the kitchen and dining and perhaps the landing on the stairs where the old parquet has seen better days and carpet everywhere else. Or LVP everywhere BUT the bedrooms - it would go down the hallway, but the bedrooms would still have carpet.

Of course, using something besides LVP is an option whole house, but for the price I think I prefer it over laminate and as I said, it's not really a hardwood house, though I could get engineered hardwood for just $2-3 more per square foot installed.

I'd love to hear from anyone who knows what, if anything, our flooring ideas would do to resale, not to mention just the look from a decorating standpoint.

LVP everywhere!

LVP in common living areas, carpet in the bedrooms.

LVP kitchen and dining only. Carpet everywhere else.

Other - suggestions please!

Featured Answer

maddielee

6 years ago

First, and don’t take this wrong, you should not have listened to what the realtor told you 5 years ago. Because you did, you may have lived with finishes that were not your favorite for all those years.

I happen to like LVP a lot. Its’s quieter and more forgiving then laminate.

Budget wise use the LVP in all connected, public areas. Carpet just the bedrooms if there is a big savings by doing so. If the savings isn’t large, put LVP everywhere. Having one type flooring throughout gives the visual impression of a larger home.

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Comments (7)

eld6161
6 years ago
We just installed LVP in our Florida home because our moisture level was too high for real wood. My goodness, so much cheaper than wood would have been.

The LVP should not remind you of laminate. They should be good enough to fool you into thinking they are wood.

I voted throughout the house, but I don’t know your budget. Obviously price out all options. Probably do LVP in areas that will have impact. Then carpet the rest.
lilion thanked eld6161
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lilion
Original Author
6 years ago
Oh @maddielee I've lived in an entire house I can't stand for that long... longer. It's just a place to live but I have no love for this house or anything in it but my husband. lol. No, the realtor was the one whip sold it to us and we were contemplating moving. We really waited to do anything because we're lazy and cheap.. And we were waiting for our dogs and our 20 year old cat to cross the rainbow bridge so as to not get stains on new carpet. But mostly, lazy and cheap.
maifleur03
6 years ago
If your 20 year old cat is like the ones I have had who lived that long or longer you may want to do some remediation before installing any flooring. There are paints/chemicals that you can apply to the underfloor to seal in the odor from the leakage they seem to have when they are that old.
lilion thanked maifleur03
lilion
Original Author
6 years ago
She was more a puker, but the dogs had issues in the end. I fully expect to have to do some cleaning and sealing. Hopefully not actual replacement.
nasmijati
6 years ago
The new owners will want to install the flooring THEY like.

Sounds like you will need to replace the tile. I personally prefer tile in kitchens and bathrooms. It holds up to water spills better than LVP, which can buckle if a water puddle stays on a seam for a long time.

Have your carpets professionally cleaned with "pet cleaner" in the steamer or shampoo machine. Re-paint the baseboards and windowsills. The rooms will look CLEAN and the house should sell faster.
lilion thanked nasmijati
lilion
Original Author
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
I don't believe tile is a good fit in our dining/kitchen as the subfloor is subpar - pun intended. Specifically, it has too much movement. Now, that could be fixed I suppose - maybe it even was just poor installation - but that doesn't stop me from hating it. I'm not doing tile again after the nightmare we've had. Something else has to go in there.

The carpets have to be replaced. Period. Cleaning will not fix them sufficiently. Yes, they're that bad. They needed replaced 19 years ago and we haven't been kind to them. After the first 7 or 8 years, when we really got to thinking about changing them for us, we realized we didn't want to stay there forever, but we also didn't want to spend the money twice. (We never thought we'd be there another 12 years!) Also, the stairs down are bare as is the (kinda) finished basement, which is currently bare, cracked concrete. It doesn't leak - but it looks like it would.

We've been told more than once it's better to just do the carpets and not give a carpet allowance on price. We actually plan on moving out and staging the house when we sell.