alternatives to carpet and re-doing kitchens

[another Linda]

We recently purchased a CY villa in Rio Grande. And now that we've furnished it, my mind keeps straying to pulling up the carpeting and re-doing the kitchen. Anyone have any experience with hard wood floors or engineered wood floors? Is moisture a problem? How about experience with kitchen cabinets? Does it make sense to just replace doors?

We are both still working so it will be a few years at least before we can consider moving permanently. In the meantime we plan to rent when we aren't using it. I guess what I'm looking for are upgrades that I want to live with, will stand up to renting, but won't be so expensive that we'd never get the money back if we decided we wanted something larger.

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback everyone has given me. -- Linda

[chuckinca]

We recently had custom doors made and installed for old cabinets and it is like getting new cabinets for 1/4 the cost.

[JohnN]

We have a laminate floor and think it's just fine vs. wood.

[Bryant]

I have laminate also. Only problem we found is the color. We chose Brazilian Cherry and have to keep a runner in front of the entire sink/dishwasher area because every drop of water (even from simply washing your hands) that hits the floor and dries, is visible. I am constantly sponging up these marks. We did the whole house and the color is absolutely beautiful and looks great in all the rooms, but those spots drive me crazy. >:(

[another Linda]

Chuckina -- What company did you use for your cabinets? How long did it take? And JohnN and Bryant -- do the laminate floors dent from heavy furniture? How well do they hold up to traffic?

Thanks for all the info folks. This site is great!
Linda

[chuckinca]

Linda - had the cabinet work done at our future summer home in Calif (about an hour North of Napa Valley). It took about a month to get the doors made and hung. About 10 doors and cost about a thou.

[another Linda]

There must be a company in or around TV that does that kind of thing. I've promised that I won't move anything (already gutted on kitchen -- very painful and expensive) and new doors and countertops would make sense.

[lm01]

Hi I would recommend doing your home work before making your purchase on laminate flooring.

If you are interested in laminate I recently used IFloors.com They are in our area. The website is a very good resource to use for pricing purposes.

According to Wilsonart floors
- If you plan to use laminate in wet area like a kitchen the seams in that area should be glued even if you are using an interlock floor.
- If you have heavy items like a piano seams in that area under the floor should be glued
- All cut pieces the seams should be glued.
- There are specific kinds of laminate for potential wet areas. With Wilsonart it's their RED Label Laminate Flooring

Never use a mop on the floor I found a swifter works great

IFloors.com was about 1/2 the price of the local carpet outlets and I had great results. They also sell hardwood and carpet.

[another Linda]

Im01 -- did you do the work yourselves? I'll definitely check out the web site. Thanks.

[lm01]

Hi I did everything over the phone Arron Cline was my sales person 1-800-454-3941 ext 2248

I found the floor at home depot got the model number and the make and gave them a call. They arranged for an installer to come out to measure. and when the material comes in the installer will come out and install the flooring.

The good thing the flooring goes to their local store directly from the factory. The installer brings it to your home.

There are 3 levels of installation so you can decide what level of service you want.

We had it installed they did everything. It seems harder than you would think.

[another Linda]

Wonderful. thanks.

[golfnut]

I think the laminate floors that look like slate I've seen in the home improvement stores are interesting, I'm looking for someone that has done it so I can see it in a whole room.