My wife and I are building a home and we've reached our spending limit, so it is decision time.

The price for handscraped wood 2 1/4" wood oak floors is $12.50 per sqft in lieu of a carpeted floor (cheaper if replacing where the builder would tile).

We want to do some tile work in the kitchen and bath. We're considering foregoing the hardwoods in the living room for now to put the money towards the tile since it is easier to replace the carpet later than to replace the tile.

My question is - what should I expect to pay after market per sqft to have the carpet replaced w/wood floors? Does the $12.50 still sound about right? We were told we could be referenced to the original flooring contractor afterwords to help our chances of getting a match w/what is in the entry way. We'd probably be making the change w/in 6 months of moving into the house after bonuses, etc.



[This message has been edited by Adam Ag 98 (edited 3/18/2010 4:30p).]

As little as ~$5 installed to as much as $15. There is a big range.

The big thing is that they are going to need to level your floors. If you are just putting in carpet the builder won't care about keeping your slab level.

What I would do is go carpet (we put up with ours for 5 years) but try to get it in the contract that they level all interior foundations to <1/8" in any 8' span. That will save you some money down the line when you want to do hardwoods.

We paid $9 / ft for engineered hardwood, handscraped...very nice stuff. There was some for $7 a foot that was nice too.

If you are in Houston...

http://www.floormaxonline.com/

We paid $3.89 for hand-scraped engineered 5" planks.

Looks really nice and was not expensive at all, but we happen to find ours on a closeout at Ged's.

[This message has been edited by army01 (edited 3/23/2010 1:26p).]

We just had 1500 sq. ft. installed. I ordered the wood, glue and t-molding from True Hardwoods. The product was delivered on time, without damage. Check them out!

True Hardwoods came in $714 (about 10%) lower than the lowest priced internet company and about $2,554 lower than local stores.

I checked them out on their local BBB as well as hardwood forums. Additionally, I called the flooring manufacturer and separately, the distributor, to ensure this was a authorized dealer. I wanted to make sure the product I was buying really has a warranty.

[This message has been edited by clem93 (edited 3/29/2010 3:34p).]