I DID offer the sheetrock guy some brownies. I put them on a plate and went out with them, and he said no thank you. But I liked what Denise said about how just because you don’t want to dance doesn’t mean you don’t want to be asked, and what Hillary said about how if you’re going to feel awkward either way, it’s better to feel awkward and shy (when offering) than awkward and guilty (when not offering).
And this morning I found it actually EASED some awkwardness to offer something: he came right in and started working, and I wanted to greet him somehow, but it was going to have to be through a plastic sheet so that seemed awk. But I called out “Good morning!” and then when he said good morning back, I said, “I’m about to put some coffee on—would you like some?” It made the greeting a little longer, which makes it more casual. Note: he said no thank you to the coffee, too.
About the floor for the dining room, I’m totally stuck. I’ve reached the point where I can’t even think about it anymore. There are too many choices: too many materials, and too many choices within each material. I have five new vinyl samples to look at (the first ones turned out to be from the most expensive “luxury” line), and they’re just sitting there in a pile because I can’t choose one: this one’s pretty, but too grey; this one’s nice, but too kitcheny. And we could also go with Pergo! Or with another highly-rated fake wood! Or with vinyl from another flooring place!
And then the prices vary so much. It’s $5.50, which includes installation. Or it’s $4.00 but you have to install it yourself. Or it’s $2.20 but you have to order it online. Or it’s $3.00 but there’s a $200 rebate. Or it’s $3.50, and it doesn’t look any different from the stuff that’s $2.50.
The fake woods look the best to me: I like the way they don’t catch the eye, but instead just disappear into being Floor, and they don’t have the problem of looking chilly and kitcheny. They look diningroomy to me. Paul thinks they look fakey, and so does everyone else. But ALL the vinyls are fake! There’s no such thing as vinyl that isn’t faking SOMETHING: it’s fake wood or it’s fake stone or it’s fake tile. I don’t see how fake tile is somehow superior to fake wood. How about this: let’s just have the plywood! I could put a throw-rug on it!
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Honest and Truly is showing the giftie she got, and starting a new contest.
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My French family has fake wood vinyl in one of the bedrooms (mine, actually) and I kind of love it. Although I also just love that room in general because when they redecorated it, they did the whole thing in purple in my honor.
In the last house we built (we don’t live there any more) we put in fake-wood vinyl in the entire downstairs — not even the super high quality stuff — and we got so many compliments on our hardwood floors, you would not believe it!! Even the realtor was fooled when we went to sell it! I would totally do that again because we have “real” hardwood now and it is SUCH a pain to keep clean. The vinyl was WAY easier and looked just as good. Honest!!
Ugh flooring options. We put engineered wood floor in our condo and ended up picking the darker color that I liked, and now ack with the cat hair and the dust that shows. Ridiculous. I will also advise to pick a floor before you choose a paint color. I painted our dining area brown, and the floor is sort of reddish, so once we put the floor in the color didn’t look the same anymore. It’s still nice, just not what I thought it would be.
what’s the floor like in the adjacent rooms? if hardwood, i’d go with something fake-woodish if only for continuity’s sake.
(also, when faced with something i can’t decide, i make up rules for myself to make choosing easier – like the continuity business above.)
A good friend of mine has that laminate/ fake wood floor all throughout their dining room & living room. It’s AWESOME. I love the way it looks. I also love that nobody worries about kids or pets or water on the floor. To me it seems like the perfect floor.
(That friend is Kelsey at mdwestmom, btw, if you want to go look at some of her pics & see if you can catch a glimpse of the floor.)
We put Pergo in the kitchen in our last house, and I LOVED IT. Super-easy to clean, damn near impossible to destroy. When I can afford to, I’m going to replace my current kitchen/breakfast area vinyl (with its textured surface that never gets clean, and the multiple gouges/cuts from dropped items) with Pergo.
Oh, and real hardwood is a PITA, so avoid it at all costs. (well, might not be so bad if I didn’t have the litter dust from 3 cats to contend with, but. . .)
Just my two cents. Have fun!
I had the Pergo in a previous house and it was GREAT for the kitchen/dining area. Easy to install – we did it ourselves with no experience before – and the easiest thing to clean ever. Swiffer, the occasional Swiffer wet, and you’re done. I have real hardwoods in my kitchen/dining room now, and I miss the Pergo! Pergo/laminate may not have the snob appeal like real hardwoods, but they are great for eating areas, particularly with lots of kids involved!!
We had a pergo wood-type floor in our old house and i ended up LOVING it. I hesitated and hemmed and hawed about it. But it was great, really.
Sturdy, easy to clean and still looked more real than fake IMO.
Mrs. Haley- Brand and style! I must know brand and style! TELL ME! I am desperate!
Jen- Adjacent room is vinyl, with hardwood on the other side of that room.
Have you thought about getting the floating wood floors? Also called laminate, I think. We have them in EVERY SINGLE ROOM of our house except the kitchen, bathroom and one bedroom. We LURVE them. I think the floor we chose was around $1.50/sq. ft. and my husband installed it himself. It didn’t take him very long at all and was pretty simple to do. Especially in square rooms (like a dining room, maybe?). Just a thought! I love mine!
I have Pergo throughout my upstairs, even in my bedroom and i LOVE it. Everything wipes up easily; it doesn’t stractch, etc., etc.
Here’s my advice: GET ANYTHING EXCEPT VINYL! Maybe it was just our bad experience with our new-built house, but I have sworn that I will never put vinyl in any room in any house ever again! My sister somehow managed to put a hole in our vinyl with her high heels. Something reacted with the adhesive in some places, which turned streaks of it a gross yellowish color. And paint drips and sheetrock mud do NOT come off easily. Plus, in order to have it re-done (it was free because of the weird streaks) they had to saw the underneath plywood thingy IN MY KITCHEN which created no small amount of sawdust. There’s also gloppy adhesive oozing up the edges. I’d say go with wood, fake wood, or some type of tiles. Good luck!
I know you’ve already thought of this (since you are a researcher after my own OCD heart!), but what about floor from IKEA? It holds up really well! Here’s the link: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/range/10373/14699/
and this is why i’m content to rent. :-)
I’ll add to the chorus of Pergo Is Awesome. They have made a lot of progress in laminate technology just in the past few years. I get compliments on my hardwood floors all the time too. :)
I would absolutely do the fake wood, if you are doing fake. It seems to me like it “belongs” more in a dining room, I think fake tile or fake vinyl is way more kitchen or bathroom. And I think if you go to sell ever people won’t mind the pergo but they won’t like fake vinyl. And Pergo is pretty nice looking these days, and if you get a light color, not too much trouble to clean.
We loved the laminate in our old house and will pull up our carpet and put in laminate in our new house someday. Also, good job on the brownie and coffee offer. I’m always so awkward with workmen around that I never know WHAT to do!
Plywood + throw rug: HA!
We have nothing but Ikea laminate flooring in our house. It is dirt cheap, was simple to install ourselves, and practically damage-proof. People constantly compliment us on our hardwood, and we think it looks great. Also, we picked the antique finish, which covers up a multitude of sins (I hate cleaning floors). I’ve noticed darker colors or the really light colors tend to show a lot more. Oh also, we bought our underlayment (the foam stuff you put down under the actual “wood” planks) at Home Depot because they sell the “silent step” kind. It is a bit pricier than the regular stuff, but it gets rid of that hollow sound that laminate can create when you walk. Too much info? Sorry.
My house is old and has the original hardwood floors. I have no complaints about them, just complaints about our 3 animals and 3 kids and the messes they make. I am completely overwhelmed by the flooring decisions you have to make. Good luck!
I’m all about the fakey woody Pergoty stuff. I swear that stuff could withstand a nuclear blast. Along with cockroaches.
The owners of our house put in real ash wood floors right before they listed it. I don’t know much about floors, but I’m thinking it’s never a good idea to have wood as soft as butter under the feet of two adults, two kids, and three 80+ lb dogs. And our floor has a bazillion scratches to prove it.
I am totally ok with vinyl flooring now. It looked fake in the showroom, but when a friend had her baby we saw it in her hospital room and it looked great full-scale. We installed some in our bathroom and it looks great. (Water damage will never be an issue, either.)
I don’t have much to say about the floor, but I did want to add that sometimes, workers just like some nice cold water. You could let him know you have some ice water in the fridge and would be happy to set him a pitcher or something
I’d go with anything that’s child-proof. And congratulations for stepping out into awkward land with a greeting and coffee offer this morning :)
I loved pergo when we had it at our old house in the family room. It doesn’t ding like linoleum, or get scuff marks from repeated chair-moving, which linoleum definitely does get and which then make the linoleum impossible to clean. There are a lot of special-order pergos that aren’t as fakey looking, and we installed it ourselves in an afternoon. It was simple. The only think is, it’s not good if it could get wet for a sustained period, like if your dishwasher busts a gasket and leaks everywhere while you’re away for the weekend. But, it is easy to pull up a section if you need to, as long as said section is on an edge.
I have pergo floors and love them! they have the feel of hardwood floors = and easy cleaning like vinyl.
Mucho cool
have fun picking out flooring- I had fun with it, although I wish we had paid people to put it in because laying it was a great big pain!
flooring, gah there are so many options. we went with engineered oak which means it’s a thin piece of real oak (i’m sure you totally know what engineered is but just in case) on top of some kind of wood type composite. anyway the point is it looks nice BUT scratches and nicks so SO very easily. it kills me that we just had it installed last year and already there’s a million nicks and scratches.
Moral of the story, go with the strongest option.
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I love all the suggestions that you’re getting. When I get overwhelmed with choices and things like this, I end up just having to take a break and not think about it or look at them for a few days. That and I make a spreadsheet (hey – at least the costs can be more clear for you then!).
They make some pretty good-looking Pergos … But honestly, I think even bad Pergo is better than good linoleum, especially for a dining room. I support your Pergo! :)
Now you’re in territory I know something about (flooring, not guys working in the house thanks to hubby who does all the work, hooray!) ANYWAY, I say Pergo. Vinyl doesn’t say “dining room” it says “kitchen” and is less durable than a good Pergo or Pergoesque floor.
Also, I actually think the plywood could look really cool! Especially if it’s that cheapo chipboard. You could sand and stain and be done. We did this with our kitchen floor. Ripped up linoleum, got down to subfloor and then decided the subfloor was so nice we’d just paint it and call it a day. I still like it. It’s “rustic” so dirt doesn’t matter as much :)
Ok, enough on flooring!!1
I have some kind of faux-wood laminate in my entire house. My husband and I think it looks totally fake, but people give us compliments on it all the time. You can see some pictures on my site if you like.
Yeah– not so hot on the vinyl thing- like rccalyn…
thing is, if you go cheap, it can look cheap, AND the “syntheticness” of the product can be problematic for people living in the house.
I just installed some click lock bamboo flooring that is AMAZING! and have a whole first level of cork flooring- which is incredibly durable and cost efficient. Think neutral and think outside the typical box. I’d be happy to send you pix and info on either of these if you’d like.
Good Luck.
linda.sands@yahoo.com
I’ve always thought that fake wood looks nicer than real vinyl, but that’s just me :)