Pergo. UGH

[sudsmaster]

It's true that laminate flooring can't be refinished. But it's probably cheaper and quicker simply to replace the entire floor with new laminate than to refinish the same size hardwood floor.

When I bought this '41 bungalow in '97, I ripped out the tired wall to wall and found nice oak hardwood in three of the rooms. I rented a sander and refinished them myself. It wasn't easy or quick, and there are still some spots that I'd rather not look at . But of course I love hardwood. In the master bedroom, however, the carpet was laid over the plywood subfloor. I lived with that plywood for about five years (covered up most of it with area carpeting), but finally replaced it with "maple" blond colored laminate. I chose that tone because I don't like the look of fake oak laminate, and nobody's going to mistake the "maple" laminate for the real thing, either. It is very durable and easy to clean, though. It's like having light yellow/tan flooring of some indeterminate nature. No worse than vinyl in terms of looks. Putting it down was fairly easy, although I had to redo the baseboards (bought and painted new ones).

It is a bit noisy... I have a cat that has extra toes and you can hear her click on the laminate at night. But she also makes noise on vinyl flooring too. Also the laminate I installed has a separate foam underlayment, which in certain spots makes a little clicking noise at certain times of year, even when walked on with soft soled shoes. More modern stuff can have the foam attached directly to the bottom of the boards. Supposed to be quieter and sound more like "real wood".

 

[whirlpolf]

tap dancing on hard plastic

Finally someone brought this up here, me being an absolute exorcist and Nazi type hater of this 20th/21st century's mental aberation called "laminated flooring".
I HATE it.
That tap dancing comparison pictures it in all its disgusting phoney wannabe appearance, no better comparison than that.

If a floor is supposed to be wood it must be wooden. If it is supposed to be plastic it should be and look like plastic. Stone must be stone likewise.
But some cheap "wooden look" plastic floor (some types even with still cheaper compressed cardboard inside) is an insult to the human mind IMHO.

Thank God I am not entirely alone with my point of view, here is another one of an architect's friend:
"German split-house halves: The demise of real architecture, yet so readily out-of-the-box. Covered with laminated floors to be ready for families where lintballs and dust mice are just as rare as real and decent orgasms." ;-))

His remark made me laugh and I could literally see and "feel" them in 3D as if being alive: All those cosmetic-consuming and "overstressed" secretary-type mothers driving their high-maintenance prissy daughters from pony farm to the hairdresser's and back again helplessly trapped behind the steering wheel of an oversized SUV. All those know-it-all grandmas sloshing out the mop bucket into the street gutter, pulling straight their vinyl sweater and stuffing it back under the belt of their pants. (Keep in mind: You do NOT empty the bucket in your toilet, no way! You do it out in the open, so all the neighbors can see how industrious you are!)

THAT is what "wooden" plastic flooring means to me.
Gravity concentrators aka plank punchers aka high heels included.
HATE it!

*phew*
Joe

 

[jeffg]

> "German split-house halves: The demise of real architecture, yet so readily out-of-the-box. Covered with laminated floors to be ready for families where lintballs and dust mice are just as rare as real and decent orgasms." ;-))

Can someone explain how to respond to that without getting this thread kicked to DL.

Allen, my partner laughed his butt off at your story about your friend's dogs.

 

[pulltostart]

An interesting point about Pergo and all of it's clones - I find it funny that plastic laminate kitchen counters are no longer 'good enough' for the average consumer, but plastic laminate floors (which is basically what these flooring products are) is fine.  Huh???  Think about it, it's a picture of a material, printed on paper and encapsulated in resins and then bonded to a stiff substrate.  Again, not good enough for counters but a 'must have' for floors.

 

Get smarter, people.

 

lawrence

 

[jeffg]

I got my first taste of Pergo's acoustic properties about four years ago. I was staying over at a friend's house and went into the kitchen for a drink. In the near-total dark I suddenly heard a bunch of either tiny or distant (I couldn't tell which) footsteps. Turning on the overhead light uncovered a wolf spider, frantically trying to make his way back outside. I'm not afraid of animals especially spiders but it was the first time I've ever heard one walking. Something about it gave me nightmares for weeks. I don't know if I would have heard him on vinyl tile. Certainly not on ceramic or stone, hardwood and probably not linoleum. In any case Pergo makes a pretty good part of a burglar alarm system.

 

[gusherb]

Lawrence

I think people just go broke buying those nice countertops that they can't afford the nice floor too!

But seriously I notice that alot. Going all out on the counter then keeping a nasty floor? NO THANKS. Hardwood or tile (preferably tile for me)

 

[whirlcool]

Jeff:

All the noise came from dogs jumping and playing with one another. The sounds o 24 legs all contacting the floor at different times.
Even though the company that installed the Pergo put down a pretty thick foam underlay when they installed the floor, it sounds hollow when you walk on it.

We'd love to put hardwoods in our kitchen, but with 4 large dogs within a year it would look like a disaster. So it'll be some kind of stone/tile for us. We did look at underfloor heating, but that would be about $2K more for our small kitchen dining area.

 

[circlew]

My sister has laminate flooring in both the kitchen and master bedroom of her house. The bedroom is woodgrain (fake looking) and the kitchen is large squares made to look like some kind of stone. It doesn't look too bad.

I will say it is a noisy surface, and slick as ice. When they first got it, my nephew was always sliding around on it in his socks. Said it was just like skating.

From what I read, the first use of laminate for flooring dates back to the 1930's. It supposedly was the glossy dark dance surface you see in old movie musicals, such as with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

 

[danemodsandy]

CircleW:

While it's possible that someone used laminate for the floors of a movie set at some point, most of the glossy floors in '30s movies were just paint - several coats of it - put down directly onto the concrete floors of soundstages.

Most movie floors in the Classic Era were paint, including all those scrumptious parquet de Versailles floors in ballrooms. They had painters who could lay down any faux look needed, from that wood parquet to inlaid marble. Periodic scraping was done when the paint layers got too thick.

The only time they usually used real materials was if the camera was going to be fairly close. Here's a nicely faked parquet floor in 1957's Silk Stockings, with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dancing on it:

 

[davey7]

Have you guys need the new laminates which are in markedly artificial, almost formica-esque colors and patterns?

My parents once looked at an apartment the realtor tried to tell them the laminate floors were real hardwood.