Friday, April 13, 2007

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.....

I was going through some old pictures of our house and comparing to more recent shots. Wow! What a change and it's only been 9 years. I'll post more of these, but let's start with the living room.

3 comments:

Jim said...

Karl....is that a laminate floor you have? If so, my question is how thick is it? We did our floor with 7mm laminate last fall (living room) and were thinking about kitchen area. Do you have any thoughts on this? BTW...nice improvement bud.

Karl Plesz said...

Jim, that's real hardwood, not laminate. I was considering laminate at one point, but we both wanted the look and feel of real planks and are glad we did. Each plank is bevelled too, which really adds a wonderful texture.

To answer your question, real planks would be the riskiest idea for the kitchen because of the effect water has on them. Laminate with real wood veneer on the top layer (usually referred to as engineered flooring) is better, but not by much. But it's still safer than real wood in an area where water spills are common. The best option would be plain laminate - the kind where the top layer isn't real wood, but is a picture of the woodgrain. This kind is much more forgiving with water spills. But in all 3 cases, you still have to get the water up quickly. My neighbour had engineered cherry wood laminate and his toilet overflowed. They had to replace the whole floor.

The other problem is that if you choose a type of flooring for the kitchen that looks too different (too real or too fake) from the living room, it might not look that great. In which case I'd recommend a tile or a vinyl flooring that lookslike tile (like we did).

Just some thoughts.

Jim said...

Thanks for the input Karl, we have been leaning toward tile looking vinyl so we will probably go that way. We were at Home Depot and found something different.....vinyl flooring that clicks together like laminate. It come in 4 foot sections, like laminate. But then again....what happens when water gets between the joints, will the sub floor underneith rot after time.
I would sure like to see what your kitchen floor looks like. Might make it easier to decide that way than just looking at samples etc...

Thanks again Karl