Anybody have Pergo?

A

ajax

100+ Posts
...or any other quality laminate? I'm trying to decide between hardwood and laminate because after two years of living in my house we have sufficiently trashed our carpet. Little kids will do that.

I'm trying to decide whether it makes sense to go with hardwood in my house, both from a durability standpoint and a resale standpoint. There are kids over constantly because my wife is quite the social mom, so we're not talking about scuffs so much as spills. Not yet at least. I'm thinking Pergo might stand up to the abuse better.

Any input would be appreciated.
 
Pergo might stand up better, but to me it looks fake. Plus, it always seems to sound hollow to me when walking on it. However, I certainly understand the cost savings associated with it.

I think if you finish hardwoods right, then staining isn't that much of an issue.

I'm a huge fan of real hardwoods and I would go that way if it fit into the budget.
 
First off, I think hardoods/laminate is the only way to go, especially with kids.

Secondly, I think it all depends on how much your house is worth, what neighborhood your house is in, etc. If you live in a upper-end neighborhood where hardwoods are the norm, then do hardwoods. Myself, my house is in a neighborhood where no house is over 175K, so laminate was the obvious choice. You dont need to overimprove/overfinish your house in a neighborhood where you wont even be close to "getting your money back" so to speak.

That being said, I love our laminate, but of course I'd rather have hardwoods. I don't think you can go wrong with either.
 
I have pergo and it is durable, inexpensive, and best of all...easy to just wipe the floor off instead of all thats required with carpet.
 
I've got Pergo in a $250K house in Austin. With many small kids in the house, I love the low-maintenance & durability. Scratches are much less of a concern than they would be had we chosen wood flooring. All things being equal I do prefer wood but that change will have to wait until our kids are older and traffic less traumatic to the flooring.
 
Real hardwood will look better, but will not be as durable as most quality laminate floors (something you'll want to think about w/ the small kids). Hardwood floors can be chipped/scratched/gouged fairly easily if you're not careful, and they can also discolor or darken due to UV light. The laminates are far superior in these areas. Real hardwood has the advantage in that it can be sanded & refinished & minor scratches can be removed that way, but it's more expensive to install & unless you're really good at refinishing flooring you're probably giong to pay someone else to refinish it down the road.

We'll be putting in a wood laminate in our living room & probably dining room in the next few years. Formica & Armstrong have very highly rated products & to me they've looked a little more natural than some of the Pergo samples I've seen.

The best advice I've heard from flooring people is to put the highest quality laminate you can afford in high traffic areas, and if you want to put real hardwood somewhere then choose a low-traffic area w/ heavy light control, maybe someplace like a study or a den.
 
This is a task that will be taken care of hopefully in the next couple to few months. I do it as my dog runs amuck and it will be fun to watch her slip even more. It'll slow her *** down.
 
total fun watching a dog attempt to run on laminate..........

agree with everyone on if you have kids go laminate, best decision i ever made.....you will marvel at how easy the clean up is.....

do go with the best stuff you can afford you'll be glad.........it does sound different, for that reason buy the best underlayment, the sound dampening is something you'll be glad you paid extra for....
 
I went with the Quick-Step Uniclic laminate. Had it for a couple of years and it looks good, very easy to install and it's been durable. It's a Belgium company and they manufacture flooring for some other brands as well.

Quiet Walk is the high end padding and it's worth the extra bucks.Quick-Step
 
Awesome info. Were I to buy beer and BBQ, how long would it take for maybe three or four people to lay down some laminate in a not so big house w/ furniture moved out? A kitchen, a dining room and living room. Mueller's BBQ and Import beer or Shiner. Hmmm, hint.
 
We just laid down some pergo in on of the kid's rooms and after trying to make some cuts with a skilsaw we went and got a $99 tablesaw at Home Depot or Lowes I forget which and it made all the difference in the world.
 
We may do the same, as the wife wants the carpet out for allergy and aesthetic reasons. Good information.
What about the hardness of walking on these floors? Should we consider natural cork for the kitchen, for example? Anyone with any experience with this stuff?
 
I totally forgot about the whole allergy reason. We may very well have the most allergic family in history.

This is all great info. It sounds like I should go with Pergo. It's tempting to go with wood, but I'm not sure it will add that much more value and I can see us staining the hell out of the wood.

When we actually sell our home, it will probably sell for a pretty good bit of money since it's SF. But for where we live, it still considered kind of a "starter" home. Anyhow, pristine looking Pergo will be more valuable than trashed wood.
 
We have Bruce laminate/hardwood called Cavendar. It is a distressed antique look and it looks great. I put it in myself and I have triplet 3 year old boys and it is holding up very well. Because it is distressed, you can't tell where new scratches and ding marks are. I love the look of it over plastic-laminates myself and this was the way to keep a good looking floor from looking worn out by kids.
 
I have had laminate for ~3 years and I have had no problems. I also have a lab that sheds alot. The laminate is very easy to clean. I either use a Swifer or my shop-vac. Plus a large dog probably would have scratched-up a hardwood floor by now.
 
concerning installing and cutting.....

i installed my own, cut every piece with a jigsaw(CUT THE FLOORING UPSIDE DOWN due to the chipping). you only cut the ends and you should be able to hide them under the trim. you leave a 1/4 - 3/8 inch gap for expansion and contraction anyway.

rooms with bay windows are more difficult, as are closets and any other areas with odd angle cuts....it's not hard and you may screw up a cut here or there....i used a dry ink pen to make my marks and measured twice...once you get the hang of it it's not that hard. you want to cut outside and wear a mask, this stuff is NASTY if you inhale, better to be safe.

it pretty much all clicks together, stagger your joints and it will look fine. most places sell a video of how to install the stuff, it's worth the $5, buy the thing....just read the instructions on how to layout the room, you may have to rip the first piece to get the stagger right.

oh, beer and saws are not a good combo...expect lots of bad cuts and possibly a missing finger or two if you do...
 
I would not be the cutter or the drinker, lol, but yeah, thanks. I will double check the insurance i have for this type stuff. The party is after, BBQ during.

I am actually excited about the gradual process of this transformation..and watching the dog get used to it. HAH, I will finally get to catch her easier.
 
yeah, but once she gets going she aint' gonna stop so good....

smile.gif


beer after the work...now that works.....
 
Now I'm being told by my real estate agent and various other home owners that laminate really won't add any value to my house. Meaning, it's worth more than the current trashed carpet but worth as much as when I bought it with a pristine carpet.

Plus, I forgot to mention that my kitchen and entry hall are hardwood. So it looks like if I'm gonna do it, it should be a really tough, stain resistant hardwood. I'm not gonna put in tens of thousands of dollars into a floor only to have it go poof.
 
would you guys recommend laminate or pergo in a half bath or full bath? will the moisture ruin it?
 
My understanding is it is fine. It is pretty airtight and impervious. Afterall, it is in kitchens and people drip stuff in there all the time. But ask the rep at the store. Maybe there is a website or sumpin'.
 
make sure to seal good with silicone, i put the lam in my baths and haven't had any problems....

the only downside is it is very slippery when wet, be careful in wet areas...
 
i have pergo throughout my house (living room, dining, kitchen, study). It is fantastic. with a dog and two cats, it withstands their runnign around great, and is super super super easy to clean. i wouldn't change it.
i got a super light colored one, i think called light maple. it looks very realistic and i've had a lot of people comment on it thinking it was real wood. when i had a big fire i had to have the whole place redone and wanted the same pergo. the idiot contractor got the wrong color and installed without checking with me, and it looked really bad and very fake (almost pink!). fortunatley it was taken care of and i am back to having awesome floors.
i also think laminate/wood/pergo whatever really opens up a house as opposed to carpeting. looks much better in my opinion.
 
First of all neither Pergo or Wood will really add value to a house. I think wood may hold value slightly better and may help your home sell quicker than one without it, but I don't think it adds a lot of value with the exception of some huge houses.

I have both. We bought a house with some fancy wood that was discontinued and opted for a close matching pergo in the high traffic rooms in the other side of the house. Pergo is generally easier to maintain than wood but not a lot. Wood is more susceptible to scratching but it can be fixed without much trouble. Both get damaged by water. It is a myth that Pergo is waterproof. Yes, for immediate cleaning it wipes clean well, but if you leave an ice cube on the floor and it puddles, in a day or so Pergo can warp just like wood. I would NOT put it in a bathroom. We are replacing a section by a door to the pool area because it is completely warped, whereas the real wood section to the area is not.

My advice, Pergo if you have kids 10 and younger, or dogs who run crazy - its fun watching my dog's roadrunner spinning leg starts on the Pergo. For immediate maintenance it is better than wood. Homes under $150 - $200 make sense as well. If your kids are a bit older, or if your neighborhood expects wood or is higher priced, then real wood is the way to go. It really isn't much more maintenance.
 
Well, it's settled. We're getting hardwood. Since the homes in my neighborhood are selling around the 1 million+ range, it doesn't really make sense to get Pergo. (I don't have a mansion - remember, this is SF)

Now my father in law and mother in law are convinced that we can do it all ourselves and save the installation costs. This is going to be a fun year (
crazy.gif
) what with little kids and a cat running around, trying to lay down hardwood. We're gonna have to get the click-together, non-glue variety and do one room a weekend.
 
This is great. I'm looking forward to the weekly updates on how the room by room installations go. I'm preparing to be entertained!
biggrin.gif


Good luck. I'm too much of a chicken **** to attempt installing laminate myself in our living & dining rooms. I sheepishly wondered out loud to my wife if she thought we could tackle the project on our own. Her response? "A floor is not worth risking our marriage over."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top