Come on you lot, between you all there must be some info on the best laminate flooring makes :D - you know, the ones that look good no matter what.  I'm looking for a rustic wood effect :D  One that looks old from the start and they will get quite heavy wear as the living room is the hub of the house ;)

We went to Floors 2 Go today and were sadly disappointed, they we really expensive and very thin, and hardly any choice :(

So far we're most tempted by B&Q   we've got a B&Q slate laminate in the kitchen and bathroom and its stood up to quite a lot in the last year, including sand, grit, flooding, splashing, heavy things dropped etc.

So what's your opinion?

Hi Dill,

I'm not a fan of laminate (sorry, not meaning to be rude ) but I do like real, solid wood floors.  Are your floorboards in good enough condition to sand or have you tried looking for reclaimed hardwood flooring to match up with any damaged boards at home?  (moot point of course if you don't currently have any floorboards :P )

Real wood floors take a severe battering yet don't seem to suffer and often look a bit better for the not exactly perfect look too ;)  Regards, Teri 

Actually I'd prefer slate flooring ;) but as we intend moving as soon as practicable, laminate is going to be more popular with buyers of a small, welsh terraced house (and quicker to fit) :rolleyes: there's no accounting for taste, but there you are :)  we have to put the flooring over concrete too.  I wouldn't really bother but the carpet is ancient and cleaning it isn't helping any more :( add an elderly cat whose hobby is chucking her just scoffed meals, and a small child who is still capable of spilling sugary drinks and you can imagine how icky the carpet can look   We don't know how long we'll be here so it'll have to be something I can live with too, but I'm reluctant to spend much money on something that I won't be keeping for long, so real wood is out ;)

Hi Dill ive just had my house valued and the chap from estate agents told me people are not wanting laminate flooring now, he advised me to replace mine with a light carpet if i wanted to sell my house quicker.perhaps a new carpet will be your best option and a cheaper one too

Oh dear, looks like I'm behind the times again :)  We are 'just looking' at the moment (you know on estate agents websites not actually in houses yet) as we hope to be able to get our own place withn the next year and I must admit that out of all the houses we are interested in I show more interest in the ones with wood flooring, be it laminate or real.  We have carpets in our rented house but due to my daughters allergies and my older dogs allergies I don't want carpets.

Personally, I think that a house with wooden floors and nicely arranged furniture with everything tucked away neatly is a much pleasing effect for potential buyers than a carpet anyday - but then, as I said, I'm obviously behind the times again :D

Hi Dill,

Didn't realise you were moving ;)  We've been in this our, hopefully, final house for 20 years but I can still remember the horrors (pre-dog too) of trying to present our previous home at it's best and cope with following our toddler round with a vacuum cleaner 18 hours a day just in case the agents phoned  - so good luck, I don't envy you!  Apologies about the wood flooring suggestion - our own house is well over a 100 years old and because of that I tend to forget that not everywhere has it tucked under a carpet :rolleyes:

As Polly suggested if it's possible (in at least some of the areas you're looking at) to fit carpeting then that could be cheaper, quicker and simpler.  I don't have a clue about the cost of laminate but I'd have thought inexpensive neutral carpeting would still be less costly even if you have to hire a shampooer after a while.

Hope all goes well for you anyway.  Regards, Teri :)

We got ours from wickes its in oak so imo looks nicer than the beech which we had in our old house. We did our living room and through into the kitchen with it and it cost just under £200 including underlay and it has a 10 year guarantee on it. It was definately cheaper than carpeting for us and if you're worried aout it getting wet all you have to do is use the pva glue with it (its the fast klick stuff that doesn't normally use glue) and that waterproofs it as well. HTH :)

OO where to start :)

Firstly, this is Wales, we're waay behind in the fashion stakes :D :D laminate/wood flooring is only just starting to fire the imagination :D :D :D 

Inexpensive carpeting is going to look like what it is :(  and will gather stains and smells :(  Half decent carpeting will cost the same as a good laminate :)  The cat puke especially, seems to linger on and on, you clean it up and a week later its staring at you where the dirt has got to it :(  add to that milk shakes and squash spills (young-un is very careful but accidents will happen ;) )  and you can imagine how long I spend on my knees trying to keep it clean, laminate would be soo much easier.

The house originally had wooden flooring but the previous owner decided to concrete the floors (very badly) so there's diddly-squat I can do about that, but I'm looking for an oak laminate that looks really old, don't like the really perfect looking finishes ;) 

I'll have a look at Wickes, but don't know if there's one local to us :)

The house move isn't immediate, we're trying to make the house more attractive, with a view to moving in the next year, we've been here 20 years now and I want to find the house that'll fit us, I work from home and need a room to work in and OH is starting a business and will need more space so we're working on dejunking, bringing the house up to date (not my style really) and increasing our income, its all go :)

We did two rooms in our house with the stuff from B&Q, we got different styles [colours] and it is great and is really hard wearing and it gets a lot of use here with 6 dogs , two cats and worst of all two kids.
Nicky

OOH that's interesting because they do some of the nicest designs, some of the more expensive ones are very disappointing and don't seem to wear that well, looking at the samples (I mean how hard a life can a sample have compared to being in a family home with dogs and kids?  I know I was looking hard but not that hard :D )

I found it much cheaper to use a good quality laminate in some of my rooms rather than a cheap carpet becuase the rooms are not square and there would be a lot of waste carpet that had to be bought but with laminate there is not much waste.  I found the waterproof one from B&Q good and it is awash with water regularly when the dogcoups her bowl. HTH

I have the Pergo Classic Oak plank. It has a matt finish and looks very much like real wood.  More expensive than most laminates, but a lot cheaper than real wood.

http://www.pergo.com/

I also have slate and limestone, they all complement each other very well.  We have underfloor heating mats under the stone, which is a must in this country if you are using them in a living type room.

Dill,

Try some of the online retailers for flooring, the prices are cheaper for the better quality laminates.  

In terms of house selling, the problem with laminates is all the cheap stuff about.  My sister-in-law is redoing a Victorian terraced house to resell.  She and her husband have put down some really inexpensive laminate.  It takes a fraction of a section to figure out that it's laminate and not real wood - it looks cheap, cheap, cheap.  It's so glossy you could practically use it as a mirror.  The sound of anyone walking on it is so loud and sharp that you'd think a horse was tap dancing on the floor.  I know the first thing I would want to do is replace it.

There really are some nice laminates now that even have the texture of real wood.  If you stick to those I think they will be attractive to buyers.  Much better than light coloured carpet that's impossible to keep clean.

Stacey

We have been looking at houses for about six months so far (well, not the whole of six months :D ) and have been very surprised at the amount of cheap work that people have done to sell :( Some is so blatantly obvious and as previously said, we have just thought of the money immediately needed to rip it all out :(

A lot of it is down to the TV programmes that show you how to revamp your house for £300 to sell it quickly :(

Daisy

quickstep IMO ;) A warning if your DIY some big retailers will not suport the guarentee unless its done by a qualified fitter normaly there own :d 

It is worth paying for a good quality underlay too, it cuts down the noise a lot.

Daisy - I know just what you mean :(  the last time we started looking at houses we decided to stay put here as every one we saw had been 'changing roomed' and 'groundforced' :rolleyes:  the quality of workmanship was so very poor it was scary, and we were knowledgeable enough to know what might lie underneath it all ;)  we were also astonished at how many people had spend out on the 'pretty stuff' and hadn't bothered about the fabric of the house :rolleyes: leaky rooves, rotten windows, dangerous stairs, walls etc.

Luckily OH will make a great job of it (and anything else he does) he's very particular and very thorough ;)

If we do get laminate it will be one that completely fools the eye and hands, I've already rejected some really expensive crap that looked like what it was :(

IMO there are some real problems with alot of the Laminates out there  certain stores are selling these less than I can buy a decent underlay trade price! well normaly id go by the rule you get what you pay for but some stores are asking quite high prices for what i see as a poor quality mdf laminate . some even chipboard constructed I dont feel these are strong enough :D  Im quite shocked when I walk about these places and see these on sale as most people fit these themselves they dont have a leg to stand on when it all falls apart. I personly think you need hdf high density fibre board sandwiched between two layers of melamine resin :P

Just to chip in with my experience of both real wood and laminate.  My current home has real wood flooring which is great but it has changed colour in patches where the sunlight is really bright and it also marks very easily so at the moment it looks a bit scruffy rather than worn and interesting, but I expect in about 20 odd years it'll look just perfect!  In my previous home we had a good quality non-glossy laminate (can't remember the make, it was about 7 years ago).  We had it professionally fitted with the best quality underlay.  This stuff wore beautifully and always looked immaculate the colour probably helped - light oak - and didn't show dog/cat hairs, at least not from a light coloured dog!  There wasn't any waterproof laminate around then and I would have certainly chose it for the kitchen if I could of.  On the whole I think I would prefer a good quality laminate.  If you can, go for commercial strength like the stuff that is layed in eg Marks & Sparks.  Btw Ikea have a good choice of various different 'strengths' of laminate.

As far as I know Marks and spencers dont use laminates they use variouse vinyl tiles/planks often  brands like Amtico/Karndean/marley  ect .. there forever changing bits and bobs here and there . personaly Id go for a vinyl tile over a laminate but there can be a huge differnce in price amtico is normaly down in M&S and can start at about  £70 psm -£120 ish psm  Karndean is a little more affordable at about £30 for there domestic range  . i think its much better for people who  have dogs :P But the price reflects it too :)
There are so many different things with wood I cant compair a laminate against it  , quality how soft the wood is how its finished if it is .  if its impregnated with anything and how its constructed and looked after . you have the benifit of sanding a wood floor and re-sealing it so you can practicaly have your new look floor back again when you decide to .
Laminate can be hard to scatch  But some can chip , swell with water and the waterproof ones can be pretty exspensive .

I got the laminate we have in the lounge from B&Q. It's textured like real wood and does look quite authentic but a lot cheaper than real wood!
If you go to their website and search for "Texture loc" it's one of those :D
We did the key test in the shop on it too and it didn't mark at all no matter how hard my OH scratched with his keys :D

I have got an dark old looking wood laminate in my hallway, we had it fitted just before we got our dobermann (he is now 19 months old), he has completely ruined it, it is scratched all over.  Apparently as it is wood I can have it sanded and re-varnished.  I have a friend who has the wood looking laminate and she has a puppy and hers is fine.  I also have a light oak wood floor in my back room, that doesn't get as much wear as my hallway and that is fine.

lisab,

I've tried the website but they don't have texture loc on it, they have tough loc and aqua loc tho?  How long ago did you get it?

dgibbo - I wouldn't have wood unless it was solid wood and that would cost too much for the size of roome - its huge :)

I have just had a look and I got the name wrong
It's called Bevel loc sorry.
Heres a link for it  http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/product/product.jsp?PRODID=8080175&CATID=8110150&entryFlag=false
And if you want to see a photo of it down pm me and I'll send a piccy (If I can find it of course!)

.

You could look at flooringsupplies.co.u  they do some good laminates :)