Now that we have the nice travertine tiles in our entry and master bath, the ugly grey carpet in the rest of the house looks even worse. We are thinking about installing wood floors sooner rather than later.

In our last house, we installed a 12mm laminate with a "handscraped" look from Lumber Liquidators, as it was pretty affordable and we have 2 small kids and a little dog, so durability is a concern. They turned out really nice, and everyone thought they were real. Link to the floors here: http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=6879&categoryId=500§ionId=473&subCategoryId=543

For the new house, we are looking for a less cherry finish, and something more of a true brown/espresso finish, to match the coloring of our cabinets and paint.

- What wood and/or high-quality laminate floors would you guys recommend (considering price and durability)? I am liking these engineered floors at LL: http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=14543

- Are there better alternatives than Lumber Liquidators?

- Anyone know a good, affordable installer in the Austin area? We can do it ourselves, but if I can find someone like the guy who did our last house in Dallas ($1.25/sq. ft.), I will gladly pay someone to do it.



[This message has been edited by mugwurt (edited 7/21/2011 2:36p).]

I used Pergo

We used what Costco offers. Has held up well, easy to install

Another happy Costco customer here

Quick-step

I ordered laminate online from Floorstoyourhome.com

it was cheap- and they look great. I have 3 large dogs that are BRUTAL on our floors and they havent scratched. We got the handscraped espresso finish and are very happy with them.

My neighbor had an absolute worst-case disaster with Pergo a few years back. It got to the point where Pergo representatives had to come to their house after the threat of a lawsuit.

The installers installed the material incorrectly and the material was defective. They ended up with massive black mold growing under and into the pores of the material. Their first hint that something was happened was when the floor would never look clean.

Pergo ended up refunding their $5k back on material and installation, plus paid to have the mold cleaned.

http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?forum_id=61&topic_id=1825068