Tile vs. Wood vs. Wood Looking Tile (Houston, Plano: hardwood floors, for rent)

[ladyFF]

Need your expert design and practically help please. We bought a house with a ton of carpet that is really nasty and we need to have it replaced. The house will be rented out until we can move to the location. But don't want to have to replace the carpet all the time. Hardwood doesn't seem to be as hard as one would think. Tile is cool to the touch for Houston Summers. Wood is warm and inviting. Too many decisions. What do you like best?

[lhafer]

I have ceramic tile in 80% of my house (entry, kitchen living room, breakfast room, all bathrooms). I have engineered hardwood in the formal dining and study. Carpet in the bedrooms.

I hate my tile.

If I had a chance to do it all over again - I would go wood floors all the way. That said - my ceramic tile is laid on a concrete subfloor (the foundation). So I will always have tile as long as I live in this house, because to rip up that much tile and replace with wood would price us out of our neighborhood!!

BUT...

For renting a house - I think I would do a vinyl wood plank flooring personally. Very easy to do yourself (I did it in my last house in the dining room that I turned into a playroom). Plus it's virtually maintenance free and waterproof. And when you are done having tenants, you can easily rip it up and put in whatever you want. I think doing a nice vinyl wood look would be cheaper than doing a cheap laminate flooring. And most people hate cheap laminate flooring anyway.

Walmarts have redone many of their floors under the clothing part of the store with wood plank vinyl floors - and you can see how well they hold up under a lot of foot traffic!

[Lost_In_Translation]

Tile is great in some rooms but in main living areas I would go with wood. It's so much nicer to walk around on and wears well in comparison to certain tiles (though I do love spanish tile and terrazzo flooring, both seem to hold up well but are expensive).

[predatorprey]

Big question...

Do you have pets?

[colcat]

The look of real hard wood is second to none, however, it is not as durable as the laminate wood which will stand up to just about anything. I have had both, and if true beauty is what you are looking for, go with real hard wood. If you have kids or pets, you may find that laminate is best. They have really come a long way with laminate. It looks more like wood than in previous years.

[Johnhw2]

I owned a home in the energy corridor of Houston and replaced carpets in all rooms but secondary bedrooms with an engineered wood floor. The floor I installed was highly recommended by Consumers for kitchen use and was hard enough to handle most denting events as well as pets running around on it....we had 3 small indoor dogs living all over our home. The choice we made, which helped me sell the home at a top price quickly, was a bamboo engineered wood product. It wasnt inexpensive, it cost more per sf than than the hand scraped real hardwood floors in put in a few rooms in Plano in my new residence.


The bamboo was finished to look like an oak or other darker wood. The planks were extra long and in a variety of sizes which made it look like hardwood, which we liked. The pictures are still on zillow which I know cant be referrenced under TOS. The manufacturer was Terragren, which at the time was the highest rated wood floor by consumers reports. I prefer it to tile as a softer to stand on surface as well as low maintainence, and as bamboo it was more water tolerant than most wood floors....but you wouldnt want water to sit on the floor either.

We were very pleasd with the choice and expect it to hold up well even though we sold the home in under 2 years after installation.

[brassylass]

If pets will be living there get engineered wood or laminate wood because you will get little bitty nail marks and scratches. My mom was in Lowes and we were trying to determine what kind to get for their house and a guy next to use was buying the laminate to replace the wood he had just put down a few months ago that was now ruined.

[a_guerrajr]

my dogs puts some serious scratches into our eng. wood. so just be conscious that it is easily scratched.
it looks nice and makes the rooms feel warm.

tile in wood design that actually look nice aren't cheap, but it's the best of both worlds.

[TFW46]

I have light-colored porcelain tile throughout my entire house. I'm so ready for a change and am seriously considering getting porcelain tile that looks like wood planks.

There's a thread in the House forum about it and someone posted photos:

See Post #16:
https://www.city-data.com/forum/house...ne-have-2.html

[Cbink]

We have tile in our entry, main living space, kitchen and all the bathrooms. I have hand scraped hardwood in the dining, study and master. I love the tile in the living areas. We have a dog, two cats and a toddler! The tile is holding up really well. I love hardwood, but think for us right now tile in the major areas is a definite plus.