Laminate Flooring
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2008 - 2013 Recommendations
Laminate floor installer
May 2012I'm looking for someone to install laminate on our kitchen floor for a reasonable price. I assume a regular handyman can do this too. Any recommendations?
I just hired Tegan Flooring to do my new hardwood flooring for the upstairs but they also do laminate flooring. It's a small company run by a woman named Cynthia. They are Diamond Certified which is how I found them. I'm scheduled to do my hardwood flooring next month. Just got the wood delivered to my house over the weekend. I am really impressed with the professionalism so far. The contractor that came out is nice and took the time to answer my quiestions. He also checked to make sure the moisture under my house was ok after I told him that I had a small flood in my kitchen a while back. 510 788 4068 Sophia B
Jason White (cell 510-866-5516) has done lots of projects for us. Most were big projects but he can handle the small ones too. He has put in flooring for us and it looks great. He'll talk to you about different patterns and you can choose the one that you prefer. Call him to see if he's available. He's meticulous, has great ideas and respects your home. He will work on your project on time and on budget. Once he does one project for you, you'll be happy with the quality of his work and you may hire him for all other home improvement projects! Yes, he's really that good! Let Jason know that Susan and Pete gave you his phone number. He'll take good care of you! susan
2004 - 2007 Recommendations
Are synthetic hardwood floors hard to keep clean?
June 2005I am considering using one of the laminate flooring options in my new kitchen and family room. I have heard that laminate hardwood floors are hard to keep clean and that spots don't come out easily. Does anyone have any experience with any of the synthetic hardwood floors and maintaining them? What brand did you use, how long have you had the flooring and what is your evaluation of it? Skeptical Home Improver
My mother has had a commercial-grade Pergo floor installed in her house for several years now. It seems to be working beautifully. My now 4-year-old son has been unable to stain or dent it despite his many attempts to do so during our visits. My mom says you pretty much clean it with a dry mop (to just dust it off), and a very occasional spot-rub with a damp cloth. But, she warns, you cannot have significant water on it for any length of time, or it could warp. My husband and I are actually considering it for our own house. I believe the commercial-grade is key. I have heard bad things about plain old Pergo. Karen
We installed Wilson Art laminate flooring in our kitchen nearly seven years ago - and it still looks brand-new. It is virtually indestructable, although it's recommended that you quickly dry any spills. We have had no problems with it at all, and like the tile-wood effect that we chose. Is it hard to keep clean? That depends. My husband loves to go over floors with a wet mop (water only). That has proved disastrous with the Wilson Art floor. Water streaks on it and it dries dirtier than it started! I am the only one who cleans this floor, and I clean it exclusively with a clean rag/paper towels and the special cleaner that it absolutely requires (you can get laminate cleaners at Home Depot). (Reusing a dirty cloth will give poor results.) Is it worth the hassle? You will need to decide. I get down on my knees to clean the floor well. Once it's clean, it looks terrific. You can spot-clean it, as well. I clean it when I notice that it's dirty, which varies with ! the weather, spills, whether I want to bend over, etc. We are happy with the choice, given other options for kitchens, and I would choose it again. Laminate advocate
Cheap laminate?
Oct 2004We will be installing Wilsonart laminate flooring in our bedroom. Upon doing an internet search I discovered it is quite a bit cheaper from sites such as ifloor.com or internetfloors.com than at our local flooring store. Has anyone purchased flooring over the internet? Are these businesses legitimate? (BTW, we are installing the tap-n- lock glueless kind -- any good/bad experiences with this kind?) Thanks. Marta
After looking at samples locally, we got our glueless Pergo Accolade for $1.99/sq foot through floorone.com. Everything arrived in about 4 days. Since we didn't pay tax and shipping I suspect it totaled pretty close to what we would have paid at Ikea (I think most of their floors cost around $1.69 square foot). Separately, if you're planning to do this on your own, it's not quite as easy to install as you might expect. We definitely needed more than a weekend (more like 5 days) to do about 800 square feet. Good luck.
2003 & Earlier
2001
Hi there! We're planning to have someone install either wood floors or this type of laminate fake wood floors made by Wilsonart. The sample I have looks ok, but I'm wondering if someone has had this stuff installed and could share with me whether it looks like plastic or like wood!
I did not use Pergo, but went with Wilsonart laminate in our kitchen and powder room and we love it. We are very hard on our floor as is our toddler. It is slightly more expensive, but much better in the long run. Just look at samples of both and you can easily see that the Wilsonart is thicker, stronger and looks better. With Wilsonart youalso have many finish choices: plank vs. tile, colors etc. -Kristi
A further comment on this issue--We installed the Wilsonart laminate tiles in our kitchen about a year ago. I am happy with how it looks, but already the lines between the tiles have become much more visible than I had anticipated that they would, and you can feel some unevenness where the tiles meet. I believe we had a very good installer, and another contractor who was in our home recently commented that it was a good installation job, but that that is what happens with these floors. I don't know if we would use this same product again, knowing this information. Claire
1999
Barbara (9/99)
We have Wilson Art in our kitchen and also in a landing and a downstairs bathroom. My mother has also used it in her kitchen and bathroom. I can't say enough great things about it. So far it's been indestructible. Whether it looks like wood or not depends on the color and whether you use square tiles or planks. In our kitchen we used squares, alternating black and white for a checkerboard effect. In the other areas we used plank in a whitewashed wood and it looks like bleached wood. We also had Anderson bid our job, but they were almost 30% more expensive that who we used. I suggest that you call Kirk at Carpet & Linoleum Center in Alamo at 925-837-5426. They're very good and we saved about $500-$600.
Kristi 9/99
We put WilsonArt into two kitchens in a high-end rental property. I cannot say enough good thingsabout hte results. It is a composite material (like Pergo, but higher quality; won't split or buckle) that can look like tile or wood. It is waterproof, warmer to the feet than tile, and less likely to break dropped plates. It lasts a long long long time (unlike linoleum) and is very easy to take care of: damp-mop with water or use the special cleaner that isn't very expensive. Best of all, it looks like a million bucks and is almost indestructible. I have found that a lot of contractors don't know about it, or only know about Pergo. I recommend calling the Tom Duffy company, which is a wholsale flooring place but which can recommend installers. You do want someone with experience to do it. You may be able to find an installer who works for a big company but is willing to do a side job. That's what we did. Sloping floors will not prevent you from installing WilsonArt. The installer just puts down mud to level the floor first. (In fact I did that part myself.) As with any flooring, the prep work is the most important part, so ask your installer plenty of questions about his/her methods.
McTorr 12/99
Pergo Floors
2001We are thinking of installing pergo in our kitchen and adjacent hallway. Has anyone had experience with getting/installing pergo from Home Depot? If not, can anyone recommend another reasonably priced place? Has anyone had any bad experience with their pergo once installed? Thanks for any advice. -Karen
We had Pergo put in our kitchen last November from Floor Dimensions (on Bayshore, near Gilman). I'm thrilled with it. The process of picking it out, having the space measured, and the installation all went very smoothly. I was actually surprised at how well it went. I think it was fairly reasonable in price. For 110 sq feet, it came to about $1400 installed. I was able to negotiate a little on the price of the product itself (about $150 or so) as I recall. Good luck! Jen
We recently installed wood laminate in an area of our home (not the kitchen) and I researched the different flooring available. The one thing I heard consistently from vendors (everyone except Home Depot) is that Pergo is very poor quality stuff. Even people who sell Pergo told us not to buy it. They said it will start to peel up and that the service from Pergo is not good when you have problems. We ended up going with a Wilsonart laminate. It was a little more expensive but there are others out there that are competitive with Pergo. As far as installers go, I worked with the Carpet and Linoleum Center in Alamo, Pat Formigle. I bought the stuff from them and I think the installation was included in the price. She had great input on which to go with -- she knows flooring very well. The installer is the owner of the company and he is fast, polite, and good. He worked around my two year old twins and never acted frustrated. I have been very pleased with what they did.
I do have Pergo, however, Home Depot did not do the installation. I will say that if I were to do it over again, I would install real hardwood. Pergo has a tendency to shrink and expand. In fact, they shrunk so much that we had to have the floors torn out and reinstalled. I have come across two other people that had the same experience. Also, as time goes by, the seams are more noticeable. I have always had real hardwood and will definitely choose that next time!
I wanted to echo the words of the person who said that most floor installers recommend not getting Pergo. Apparently Pergo doesn't hold up well and doesn't install easily either. We also got Wilsonart laminate and have been very happy with it. We weren't able to use Carpet and Linoleum Center in Alamo, because they wouldn't come to North Berkeley for a job, but we did use Anderson on Broadway in Oakland to install, and they did a good job. Good luck to you. -Sima
I recommend Tony Nguyen at Special Hardwood Floors, his price is competitive and does an excellent work, we got our floors done by him both refinished and new floors. He can be reached at specialhardwoodfloors [at] gmail.com
I highly recommend our carpenter JC Herreria who installs laminate flooring as well as real wood flooring. He is super talented, affordable, can build anything. He is young but has been doing this for ever. Laminate flooring is easy to install too so it will be fairly affordable anyways.
JC is also a very kind and an easy going person, which is why we always recommend him. His number is 510-982-5007.