Hardwood Floors

[grillywarren]

OK...just looking for some information!

In the past we have had maple floors, and bamboo.

The maple scratched a little bit, the bamboo was great.

We are currently looking at a house with Brazilian Cherry.

My question... has anyone ever had this flooring and two cairns???

My dh thinks we would be fine.....keeping the nails trimmed???

I just was wondering if anyone had experience with this/

Thanks!

Ellie

[Barney's Mom]

Wow! Brazilian Cherry sounds EXPENSIVE!!!!! I don't know if even I would want to walk on it!

We have refinished oak floors in our house, which is about 70 years old. Since we were new home owners 17 years ago and didn't know a whole lot about restoration, we finished them with spar varnish, which a coworker told me was good to use on floors. He was wrong, because it is not a hard varnish, therefore our floors scratch easily.

I think if you have a good hard wood and a good hard polyurethane varnish, you should be good to go. A good place to ask about scratches is a specialty paint store. They would be very knowledgeable about that kind of thing!

Good luck!

[tena]

I've seen brazillian cherry laminate and it is beautiful. My hardwood floors are older and we don't have problems with scrtaches, just sliding as the critters pl tag

[mrskti]

put rugs in the crucial powerslide areas and you should be fine....my 90 pound golden did the prescratching for me, right after we built the house....after that....it's all downhill!!! Ours are oak, we should refinish, but i'll leave that to the next people when we move to florida someday....too much crap to move.

[hallswel]

We have the laminate floor when we went to look at them all the places we went asked if we had dogs in the house and when we said yes they suggested laminate floors, really easy to keep clean!

[Tracy A.]

Here is a tip from Handy Tracy-

If you have some mild floor scratches, like from moving furniture you can use a light sand paper and steel wool to buff it out. Then use a floor grade polyurethane to seal. It might take more than one coat to finish it. Also, if the new area has more of a shine that then rest of the floor, just take very fine steel wool and dull it down to match.

I've done some spot touch-up on our oak hardwood floors. Had a spot of water damage in the dinning room. I sanded it down to the wood and blended some concentrated oak stain to match using mineral spirits to tone it down. You can rub in with a cloth, then let it dry. If you need it darker then apply another coat. Then followed steps above... and you can't even tell it was done!

[kayharley]

I'm so glad I've learned to live with the scratches on my oak floors....kind of like the handprints my son would leave on our walls when he was little.

Keeping my oak floors perfect is like keeping the sliding glass door free from paw/nose/tongue prints.

I've found that Johnson's wood floor wax is amazing at taking out surface scratches and giving my floors a wonderful shine...also helps the Cairns slide around better.

I'd die for cherry floors.... If you get them please post a picture so I can drool!

[goforette]

I'd love to do wood flooring, but with pets I'll stick with laminate. It's easy to clean and deal with if you have a puddle that sits too long. I thought about the pergo - I hear that it has a realistic wood look with a 20 year laminate type guarantee - that will probably be my next upgrade is pergo.

[bradl]

I was looking at some bamboo flooring at Home Depot the other day and was rather liking it. If it was markedly easier to care for than other hardwoods I guess I'd consider it, but I hear that laminate really is a lot easier for cleaning up the invevitable accidents and marking, etc. Although I worry about dents from dropping things! No perfect answers I guess.

[Anna_525]

We JUST had our floor to floor carpet removed to reveal the hardwood floor underneath, and changed the kitchen vinyl floor to cherry-colored laminates. We asked for the hardwood staining to match the kitchen, and it came really close enough, although let me tell you, the laminate floors are better-looking than actual hardwood. I felt like having laminate flooring all thoughout! I was worried about scratches, but it's been two weeks and there isn't any coming from Alfie! The area rugs, however, have dig marks already.... I would love to post pictures to show you the difference between laminate and hardwood floors, I'll ask dd to help me later.

Anna

[Eliz222]

Cherry floors....they are going to be beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have always had hardwood flooring and never had problems with scratching. I think a lot depends on the finish you put on them. We now have hardwood floors that were prefinished. They have, I think, 7 layers of finish and is put on in a controlled environment, which makes for a strong finish. We did have on site finished floor in an addition (in our former home) and although we didn't have any scratches, the floor did start to show signs of wear after only 2 years.

Be sure to post pictures!

[grillywarren]

Great replies everybody!!!!

Brad...I would highly recommend bamboo flooring. We had it in Boston..a loft...it

was beautiful, easy to clean, and pretty much scratch resistant. I do know that grade matters, but we really loved ours. Also, it is VERY environmentally friendly..reproduces very quickly!

I will post pics as soon as I can, we have our house inspection on Friday and I will snap

some pics then. Grilly is finally going to have a FENCE!!!! (as quickly as we can get it installed..it is #2 on our list...right after blinds) YIPPEEE!

Ellie

[Kathryn]

Would love to know how those of you with oak flooring finished it to keep scratches off. We had oak (red oak) installed and it has a sealer and several coats of poly, but the dogs do scratch it. Perhaps because, in addition to Allie, we have several others that visit regularly and they tend to play ball and tumble around on the floors.

I have seen the bamboo installed in new downtown lofts in Minneapolis, and I could drool over that. It's lovely, but I don't think it would "fit" in our Victorian house.

Also, a friend recently installed maple pergo in her new addition, and I couldn't tell that it wasn't wood. Looks terrific and apparently is easy to clean and really durable. Is this the laminate people mention?

I guess I'd rather have a scratched floor and a dog than no dog and a great flawless floor.

[bradl]

Also, a friend recently installed maple pergo in her new addition, and I couldn't tell that it wasn't wood. Looks terrific and apparently is easy to clean and really durable. Is this the laminate people mention?

I believe it is.

I guess I'd rather have a scratched floor and a dog than no dog and a great flawless floor.

Amen. I'd try for that tavern feel with the distressed plank floor - you know the ambience, just throw the peanut shells on the floor, too - but I have the vague feeling my wife might not go for it.

[abe's dad]

We have oak with several coats of Minwax poly the only scratches we have are from moving furniture. I refinished them about 7 years ago. I tend to agree with Brad and Kathryn the little imperfections just add character. BTW Valerie gets a little uneasy every time we go to one of the steak houses where you throw the peanut shells on the floor. She says "that is just wrong" but we always have a little fun with her as she piles her shells on the table.

[mrskti]

I think if I had it to do over, I'd chose a more distressed look too. The first few months after we built this place, I was ready to throw out the dog and pile the husband on top of him!!! I finally gave up. I think my cats were harder on the floor than the dogs were though. Lets just say my house has character!!!!!

[grillywarren]

Ok...so things are getting close...inspection done.

Here are a coule of photos of the floors. This is the kitchen/hearth

room. I did some research on cherry and it seems to be

pretty hard. We will just cross our paws!!!

Ellie

P.S. I should mention that 1st pic also contains DH!

[AllAboutPetey]

oooooooh aaaaaaaaah. What a lovely home! I'm drooling with envy. I'm sure it will be a very happy home filled with all sorts of Cairn antics. The floors are very beautiful BTW.

[kayharley]

Here's the deal....not only does Elliott come for a visit but I do too... I just HAVE to dance on those gorgeous floors. Got any swing music?

I'm jealous, I'm jealous, I'm jealous

[Anna_525]

We're just looking at part of your house but I already know that it's GORGEOUS! The cherry floors look great!!! (i said ours is cherry-looking....with emphasis on the -looking...big difference from the real thing)

[grillywarren]

Thanks everybody! We are pretty excited! I hope to stay

in this house longer than our others (this will be our 6 home in 5 1/2

years of marriage!!!) We moved to be closer to my MIL who is

pretty sick

gosh, I hope the doggies don't kill the floor. How many people use the

dremel? Maybe that would be better?? Oh, well! A floor is only a floor,

But my babies are MY BABIES!

Kayharley..you and your doggies have an open invitation!!!!!!!!!

Ellie

[Cairnmania]

Hi Kay,

Just a word of advice, if you have wood in front of the sink or stove, use rugs. I had oak floors with four dogs and the poly finish on the floor really wore out quickly right in front of the sink, somewhat less so in front of the stove. The finish we had put down was several coats of the real tough kind used on professional basketball courts - the dogs did not make a dent in it.

Stacey

P.S. Enjoy your new home!

[savannahsmom35]

Gorgeous!

[Kathryn]

WOW!

Absolutely gorgeous. But I am not going to show this to DH, who is the major chef in the household and has always wanted a kitchen with granite and a fireplace. I think this is probably the room he dreams about. And can I ever see a cairn or two cuddled up on a pillow by that hearth!