Anyone have/seen up close vinyl flooring?

We are starting some renos on our place next week and can't figure out what to do about flooring in the back of the house.

Bit of background (the short version) we brought this place a few years ago and always planned on some cosmetic renos. Then the back section of the house started to fall down around our ears (slight exaggeration but it was pretty bad) so we had to spend $20k on underpinning the back of the house. As a result (and two babies later) not much else has been done.

We finally have the money to do the cosmetic repairs (all the cracks in the plaster, cornices etc) and we are also replacing all our doors, skirting boards and door frames with high profile stained timber. We're kinda going for a federation type look.

Anyhoo...back to the flooring. We currently have tiles throughout. They aren't too bad but show up the dirt and are a bit dated and chipped in places.

The biggest issue is our main living area. Because the extension on the back of the house wasn't done properly, the floor is uneven and to cover this the previous eejit owner put one of those gold carpet edging strip thingos all the way along the join. It looks hideous, everyone is constantly tripping over it and it is a permanent reminder that we brought a bit of a lemon :wall: There is also a raised tiled section in the corner of the room where a fireplace used to be and we want to get rid of that too.

DH wants to put in a floating timber floor. I'm not sold. PIL had theirs done about 2 years ago and it has not worn well. It is quite scratched and I'm worried how it will hold up with three young children in a heavy traffic area. I've seen quite a few and some of them look...well fake and cheap iykwim. Another reason I don't want it is the expense. We are not staying here long term and I kinda don't want to spend any more money on this place than we have to.

I suggested carpet but DH is not keen. We are planning on moving in a year or two and the house will be rented out at that point if all goes according to plan. He has heard horror stories of tenants trashing carpet and is also concerned about wear and staining with the three kids. I see his point but carpet is so much cheaper to replace (we will be selling eventually).

So, I suggested we have a look at vinyl flooring. We'd probably go for the timber plank stuff. I've checked out a few websites and it honestly doesn't look too bad. It's apparently hard wearing and easy to clean.

Does anyone have it in their home or has anyone seen it up close?

OK, so that wasn't such a short version but any opinions would be welcome!

Hey love :). I have seen it up close in a store because we were considering it for our kitchen area. These days vinyl looks so good (well, I reckon anyway ;)). I think it would look great in our kitchen, but DH is worried about long-term wear with our three kids (we plan on staying here for a long time). We have floor boards under our tiles so we are thinking of ripping up the tiles and polishing the boards, depending on their condition.

Good luck and have fun deciding!!

we have vinyl but u have to be careful with sharp things on the floor we have a few rips in our floor from moving furniture

J - Thanks for your reply

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we have a few rips in our floor from moving furniture

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Wouldn't really be an issue for us. We haven't moved furniture since we've been here and have a modular lounge suite so we can really only have the room set out the way it is now. Although with small children, I can't guarantee there wouldn't be any rips! LOL.

Trish - I agree. I was surprised how good the modern stuff looks.

We're going to head out to a few flooring places tomorrow to have a look but that's always hard with three little ones in tow!

yeah its mostly in the kitchen where we had the issues with the fridge

I've only seen vinyl flooring in magazines and it looks quite good.

I've always liked cork and it's apparently environmentally friendly and you can get all sort of effects in it these days like parquetry. I'm not sure how well it wears but I like the fact that it looks and feels warm.

Hi,

We recently "did up" DS2 bedroom so that it looked like a little boy's nursery, and we replaced the carpet with some of the vinyl timber look planking - we think it looks fantastic! Its held in place by double sided tape, and DH was able to do it himself in only a few hours (he's a builder though, so has all the right tools and equipment needed for cutting it quicker, neater etc than just a stanley knife like they say will also do the trick). If I knew how to post a pic of it on here I would.....but I haven't figured it out yet!

We actually love it so much, that we're going to re-do right throughout our house with the same stuff, going directly over the tiles that are already down. The tiles we have are just so hard to keep clean with 2 kids (they're an off-white gloss - can you imagine!) so we are hoping this timber look stuff will be softer and hide a lot of the smudges marks a bit better.

the beauty of it also is that as I said, it can go straight over the top of what is already down (as long as its reasonably flat - it should be fine over our tiles).

We're certainly happy with how ours looks anyway. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

My work has the timber plank vinyl flooring in the shop area. It looks exactly like wood, in fact customers comment on it every day and can't believe it's vinyl when I tell them. I would have it in my house if it wasn't so expensive. They type we have is very thick and wouldn't tear if furniture was moved on it. It seriously looks like wood.

I can't for the life of me remember the brand of it (the tiler did give me a brochure which I've lost) but I was talking to the guy who installed it, he said he has it right through his house and it's hard wearing, easy to clean and looks great.

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I would have it in my house if it wasn't so expensive.

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Bugger...I was thinking it would be a cheaper alternative to a floating floor??

Rilady - If you don't mind me asking, can you remember approx how much it was?

I had this throughout my house that I built. If you aren't going to be there long term I think it's a great idea....I would have thought it be cheaper than the floating click together flooring.....BUT.....

You'd have to make sure that your floor is even....KWIM? Mine was placed direct onto a concrete pad, and you could see little bits of dirt that weren't cleaned off the floor properly kind of showing through (no big deal though). Also like JwithJ said, you have to be careful as it's pretty soft stuff so dropping things on it can poke holes through.

Not sure, maybe they have varying thicknesses you can choose from, but I'd say the thicker the better!

Mine was timber plank and it looked great! It holds onto dust though!!

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Bugger...I was thinking it would be a cheaper alternative to a floating floor??

Rilady - If you don't mind me asking, can you remember approx how much it was?

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I just asked DH and he said approx retail price for what we've got was about $47/square metre (we got it a bit cheaper though as he's a trade customer).

He said it was a truckload cheaper than some of the floating timber floor out on the market. I have no idea about prices of all these sort of things, but I know for a fact he wouldn't have gone with it if it was too expensive.

Like I said, we think ours looks great, it looks like timber until you walk on it and realise its softer under your feet, but still has that timber look about it. Plus, its supposed to be pretty hard wearing stuff.

I know we've seen some cheaper alternatives as well, however we've been told they're basically a waste of money because some of them will rot the minute anything is spilled on them (unless they're wiped and dried IMMEDIATELY), especially urine (again, definitely a no go for us, with 2 little ones & toilet training!).

That's great rilady, thank you!!

I've already seen online that it comes in different quality and thickness, so we'll look in to all that tomorrow. We may also be able to get it at trade price because the builder who is doing our renos is an old family friend of DH's.

We are only doing a smallish area too so it should be affordable enough. I was thinking about putting it in our laundry too which is off our main living area but not sure if it's suitable for wet areas...will check that out tomorrow too.

Ok, I'm hoping this works, I've tried to attach a pic of the floor in DS2's room to show you how it looks - we love it and so does everyone else who's seen it. They can't believe its vinyl until the look closely at it!

Ok, so I must not be allowed to attach pics in here since its been edited....oops, sorry about that!

My parents have it in the dining room and hallways, and I love it.

I have had wooden floors before, but this is so much easier to clean, and is nice to walk on..

I'm sorry rilady - your pic did work but I had to remove it as per forum guidelines.

P.S - it does look terrific though, I think I'll look into it for my place too!

Sorry about that Lulu - I obviously didn't read the forum guidelines very well, did I?!? :redface:

Nah, tis ok!

Hi Willow, we built our house 4 years ago and decided to go with Vinyl flooring throughout the whole house except for bedrooms rumpus and theatre, we even put it in our bathrooms and toilet & laundry. We love it soooooo much in fact we love it that much that we also installed it into our rental property when we renovated it.

We went with Karndean planks at our house. There are other brands though. I think that Karndean are one of the more expensive brands. We used a cheaper brand in the rental I cant remember the name of it sorry but it has worn well.

We have not had any problems with it at all, its easy to clean etc and if i ever built or renovated again I would definantly have it on my floor.

Everyone who comes to our house always comments on the floor, initially they think its wood and are so suprised when we tell them what it is, we have to actually show them a piece so that they believe us.
Personally I would not go with floating timber as it is softer and marks/dints easier. If you damage a piece in the centre of the room you have to lift the whole floor from the edge of the room to get to the piece thats damaged but with the vinyl floor you can cut out the piece thats damaged and replace it with another its that easy.
Sorry to carry on about it but I love it cant you tell.