Flooring with Outside Contractor

Glad to hear everything worked out.  My sister has a very similar wood in her kitchen and she hasn't had any issues. 

I also hear as long as you are quick to clean items up then you are fine.  However, any large leaks are always an issue. 

Looks great JRSCGSR! 
 
ZeroLot said:
jrscgsr said:
Thompkins in fact came in over the price of the design center and OC Flooring was about $1000 cheaper.  Both Thompkins and OC flooring quoted 4-5 days for the job completion, but Venetian promised 2 days to do all the work.
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That's exactly what we experienced too.  You must have gotten that guy with the bald head at Thompkins, right?  I heard he over-charges everyone. 

By the way, your new floors look beautiful!!!  Really nice!!  :)
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Yeah, he was an older bald caucasian guy, big belly too.  He had labored breathing just walking around the store showing us the wood and my wife was creeped out by him.  He couldn't even stoop down to pick up the wood sample pieces to show us.  Even if the prices were comparable, our experience there on 2 occasions were enough to turn us off to Thompkins.
 
I think having an itemized breakout of all costs is actually preferred. You get full transparency and can use that to negotiate pricing between contractors. Most contractors would try to avoid giving you an itemized list because they don't want you to shop their quote. Not everyone is comfortable negotiating or playing hardball. To each their own!

Your floors look great and I am glad you are happy with the results!
 
We've have wood flooring in the kitchen, most spills do not cause problems if they are cleaned up fast.  Even puppy accidents were ok and sometimes it was a little while before we"discovered" those.  Bigger problem is scratches on dark shiny flooring, you can get one of those wood markers to help hide those.
 
jrscgsr said:
With the layout of our great room/kitchen, we couldn't find a good transition point to put a different material into the kitchen area and still look good to our eyes.  The original flooring had the transition point aligned with the wall of the hallway (from carpet to tile), and we thought it would look strange to go from wood->tile at this spot since the kitchen flows straight into a breakfast nook area and then to the great room.  In all the models they had the same flooring throughout the first floor, so we couldn't picture if it would look any good.
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Yep... that's one of shortcoming of the new builds is with that great room design there is no easy transition point between the family sitting area and the kitchen.

We would go all tile but we've done that before and we like the look/feel of wood.

We aren't concerned so much about the small moisture... just big leaks like everyone is talking about and the dropping of utensils, pots/pans etc that usually occur in the kitchen (even stuff falling out of the fridge/freezer).

It looks very good though, which is why we are tempted to do it in our kitchen too.
 
Are folks putting wood thru out the house or just 1st floor?  If cost is not an issue, would you put wood in the secondary bedrooms and stairs or leave them carpet?  We have 4 kids(9,8,5,5) and were not sure if wood in the bedrooms would be noisy or uncomfortable.  I suppose we probably would have rugs but just wanted to get opinions from others.  We will have natural stone in the bathrooms and laundry room already.
 
Logik said:
Are folks putting wood thru out the house or just 1st floor?  If cost is not an issue, would you put wood in the secondary bedrooms and stairs or leave them carpet?  We have 4 kids(9,8,5,5) and were not sure if wood in the bedrooms would be noisy or uncomfortable.  I suppose we probably would have rugs but just wanted to get opinions from others.  We will have natural stone in the bathrooms and laundry room already.
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I used to have carpet in the bedrooms and regretted after having 2 kids and a dog.  It just gets ambushed by them.  So I installed laminate, but laminate felt cold and hard. 

Then in my new house I installed engineered wood, what a difference THAT made!!  OMG!  Plenty of accidents by the kids have already happened and the wood floors can take it.  I did keep some carpet upstairs (in the hallway only) and I know I'll have to rip that out in a few more years.  But my engineered wood floors are awesome!  They're not as cold as laminate but not as warm and fuzzy as carpet.  But it sure can handle abuse of kids and pets.

My bedrooms are all upstairs and my floors were installed by Venetian.  There are no creaking sounds and I don't hear noise from upstairs unless the kids are running/hopping/jumping upstairs.  But those activities are generally followed by screaming/yelling/giggling and eventually crying.  If they are walking I don't hear anything downstairs.  But sound barrier on new homes are different than older homes.

I also installed some FLOR tiles in certain areas upstairs that I felt can benefit from a bit of warm and fuzziness, like the master bedroom. http://www.flor.com/

That's just my 2 cents worth.  ;D  Oh and I always go barefoot inside the house.
 
I would go for wood mainly because it stays cleaner. Too much stuff you can't see gets trapped in carpets even if you are always barefoot in the house and vacuum regularly.

I like the feel of carpet better on my feet and I think it looks good (and warmer) too. As far as being quiet, I don't think there's any difference. Wood is quiet too if installed with glue. 
 
My previous houses had carpeting and each time I had to vacuum the carpet, I told myself that I would never buy a house with carpet again. One of them even had carpets in the bathrooms and that was yucky.  Vacuuming the stairs is the worst.  Keeping the edges of the carpet looking clean is very difficult and time consuming.

Now, I have wood and tile so basic cleaning is much easier.  Although, dust and hairballs and pieces of whatever the kids drop on the floor are much more noticeable with wood.  At least the carpet mostly hid those little things.  Anyway, I make the kids vacuum their own areas now.  :p  I did like the way carpet looked "fresh" after vacuuming it though.

During winter, it is colder to the touch but I hate walking barefoot so I always have socks on so no big deal except to go to the toilet in the middle of the night.  I do have slippers nearby but I hate the noise it makes.  The kids don't seem to mind being barefoot during wintertime.

We don't wear shoes inside the house so noise isn't that much of an issue to us, although it probably is noisier than when we had carpet.  When the kids were smaller, it was nice to have something to cushion their falls but it's not a factor anymore. 



 
I like carpet upstairs for the sound deadening and more forgiving with younger kids.  No food allowed upstairs so that helps a little with the mess, except when the kids are sick and projectile vomiting.

About Flor, it looks good and is versatile, but over time a gap will develop between the tiles and it can be a pain to redo them all.  Also a lot more expensive than a similar size rug.  Its easy to swap out a dirty tile if you need to though.
 
I have wood flooring through out the first floor and all the bedrooms in the second floor. Main reason for doing wood floor in the 2nd floor bedroom is for the maintenance issue.  You don't have to worry about getting stained, getting deep cleaned once a year, and replacement every 5 to 10 years.  Also if you are sensitive to allergen or dust mites, wood flooring helps. 

I'm also have a concern about noise issue with wood flooring in the 2nd floor, so I installed cork underlayment sheets under the wood flooring.  It works out great, you can't even hear people walking in the 2nd floor from below.
 
I should also add I spent hours researching the type of wood floors I wanted.  Each type of wood has it's own texture and softness.  It's not all just about looks.

I personally liked the feel of hand-scraped engineered wood.  It has more grip than a smooth finish.  We originally LOVED the look of Maple Chateau, a smooth finish wood.  However after feeling the wood and walking on it we decided on the hand-scraped version of Maple Sunset.  I'm sure some people think I'm crazy thinking engineered wood can feel different from each other but it really does.

My kids currently love Maple Sunset so much that they roll around on it whenever their bored.  They never did that when I had laminate.
 
wrigley said:
About Flor, it looks good and is versatile, but over time a gap will develop between the tiles and it can be a pain to redo them all.  Also a lot more expensive than a similar size rug.  Its easy to swap out a dirty tile if you need to though.
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I've thrown away rugs at least once a year with kids and pets in the house.  Based on how much I've wasted, Flor was the next best bet.  The initial cost is more expensive than a rug from Costco.  But the clean up and repairs are a cinch.  I can cut any tile off and wash it at the sink.  If the stain is irremovable, I'll just replace that tile.

If the tiles move, I'll just re-stick it with the Flor dots.  I used more Flor dots than the instructions requested but that's how I make sure my Flor tiles doesn't move.
 
ZeroLot said:
I should also add I spent hours researching the type of wood floors I wanted.  Each type of wood has it's own texture and softness.  It's not all just about looks.
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ZeroLot said:
If the tiles move, I'll just re-stick it with the Flor dots.  I used more Flor dots than the instructions requested but that's how I make sure my Flor tiles doesn't move.
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Sounds uncharacteristic of you!  :)
I think it depends on the application.  And the type of Flor, we had more problems with felt type ones like Fedora.  We still use them though, better than a lot of other options.

BTW when you say hand scraped and smooth are you talking about oiled vs polyurethane coated, or is the hand scraped actually textured?
 
wrigley said:
Sounds uncharacteristic of you!  :)
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;)

wrigley said:
I think it depends on the application.  And the type of Flor, we had more problems with felt type ones like Fedora.  We still use them though, better than a lot of other options.
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We're using the wool ones in the master from Flor and the "Better than Sisal" in the kitchen area.

wrigley said:
BTW when you say hand scraped and smooth are you talking about oiled vs polyurethane coated, or is the hand scraped actually textured?
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I think it's the polyurethane coated.  The link is here:
http://www.urbanfloor.com/Maple-Chateau.html
http://www.urbanfloor.com/Maple-Sunset.html

I researched many wood types and narrowed my favorites to maple, walnut, and hickory.

Then from there I narrowed down the company I liked and within in my budget.

Once I got it down to the company it was the touch and feel test.  I picked the one that felt really nice to the touch.
 
got a quote from venetian recently for provenza hard woods.  came in at $14.90/sq ft with demo. no demo was $12.74 if they installed over the tile.

hardwood flooring depot gave me a quote of $11.18/sq ft including demo and said they would not install provenza over tile.

the main difference was venetian charging almost $6.75/sq ft for install vs hardwood flooring depot charging $3.50/sq ft for install. 

what was surprising was the install price by venetian. i got some pricing info from a member here on TI and my install price (excluding the wood) was 60% more for similar square footage. i thought the quote seemed high when i got it. $3-$4 per sq ft for install seems to be the norm, so $6.75 seemed way out of whack.
 
@qwerchete:

Now you're looking for hardwood for your new home? Just put some carne asada on it!

Seriously: Did Hardwood Flooring Depot include baseboards? That might be the added cost that Venetian had in their quote.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
@qwerchete:

Now you're looking for hardwood for your new home? Just put some carne asada on it!

Seriously: Did Hardwood Flooring Depot include baseboards? That might be the added cost that Venetian had in their quote.
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i do find that carne asada fixes most things :) 

the grout is getting tough to maintain clean so thinking of just switching to wood, not sure if we will do it or not. trying a couple different things on the grout.  hardwood flooring depot said they could reuse most of the baseboards and assumed a nominal amount for new baseboards that may get damaged.  all new baseboards would add several hundred to the quote. but venetian came in over 4,000 higher than the depot and baseboards are not 4K.
 
qwerty said:
got a quote from venetian recently for provenza hard woods.  came in at $14.90/sq ft with demo. no demo was $12.74 if they installed over the tile.

hardwood flooring depot gave me a quote of $11.18/sq ft including demo and said they would not install provenza over tile.

the main difference was venetian charging almost $6.75/sq ft for install vs hardwood flooring depot charging $3.50/sq ft for install. 

what was surprising was the install price by venetian. i got some pricing info from a member here on TI and my install price (excluding the wood) was 60% more for similar square footage. i thought the quote seemed high when i got it. $3-$4 per sq ft for install seems to be the norm, so $6.75 seemed way out of whack.
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Venetian is highly recommended, but so is their price.

But you know what they say you get what you pay for.
 
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