I bought a house from my ex-fiance recently in December 2009. I want to remodel the floors in kitchen, living room, dining room, and the hallway. The rooms are very open and I want a floor looks good together. I can't decide whether to go with laminate or tile. Which one do you prefer if you were a buyer? I might resell in about 10 years later.

If I go with a tile, I might go with Mexican tiles or slates. I don't know if it looks good with my house's design. I have some antique and modern furniture. Those tiles usually look good with Mexican and Native American furniture. Which one do you prefer?

If I go with laminate, I know it will look great in the house and match with the furniture settings. My concern would be from the water leaking from the roof that could damage the floor. We don't get a lot of raining until recently. Also, found out that the roof is leaking so we are going to repair that.

Thanks.

Mexican tile is awesome.

One of my friends redid her kitchen floor with cork. It's beautiful.

Hi Lindsay, I think slate might work better for you. It all depends on how long you are going to stay in the house. Laminate is cheap and might look good if you sell right away.

We have recently purchased and remodeled our house as well. I wish we used slate or one of those polished concrete installations on the ground floor. We've got Beech floors and they are already scratched up and stuff got into the seams. One thing to keep in mind is to make sure the material will stand up to the cleaners you are going to use. Some slate is very porous and stains easily. Glazed tile could be very slippery. I wonder if I should have taken samples of the *pollutants* and cleaners to the warehouse and tested them inconspicuously?

eta
If your furniture and objects have a lot of character and there is a lot going on it is usually recommended to keep the floor and the walls neutral so as not to overwhelm. Or you could choose a direction and follow it using a few unexpected pieces here and there to kick it up. Sorry for the ramble, I wanted to be a designer once

Edited by Ana Kozlowsky (02/07/2010 09:06 PM)
Edit reason: eta

I highly recommend Amtico flooring. It is a laminate, but a very high quality product and not inexpensive. We chose it when we built our home due to the fact that we knew we would have dog(s) in and out and wanted something that did not require constant maintenance and which would not show scratches/scuffs easily. We feel it was very much worth the investment, and if you are going to be there ten years, depending on your budget, I think you would appreciate it.

I've put in both laminate and tile. As others have mentioned budget and how long you plan to live there should be your primary decision maker. Personally on my forever home my plan is stone or textured concrete floors with stone or concrete half walls. No scuffs to worry about, no slip and sliding for the pups, hides dirt, and is completely washable.

Laminate is a cheap option and generally it looks great. Downside is if it gets damaged in some way it can be a pain to replace a plank, and it's possible the model/color won't be made anymore. It also can scratch.

Tile is great albeit cold on the feet. You may need to replace your plywood with concrete board as a backing. It also can be very loud if done over large areas.

If your looking at laminate Pergo's commercial grade does not scratch, however commercial grade is more costly, but in the long run, well worth it.

I agree with Melissa, ceramic or stone floors are beautiful however in a large room there is the noise factor. Several large rugs can help with the noise but sometimes defeats the purpose of not having carpet with dogs.

Slate can be beautiful but it sure is hard to keep the grout looking good. I was raised in a house with a slate floor and my mom cleaned it with muratic acid.

If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen a tile/slate/ceramic floor can get really tiring on your legs.......at least it does with old folks.

Hahaha.. I'm not over the hill yet

No matter what you get it would be a "hard flat surface". After walking barefoot on my new hardwood floors I got severe heel pain. My doctor told me to wear shoes around the house. I started wearing athletic slides with shock-absorbent soles and good arch support and never had heel pain since then. We had to put away the nice fluffy rug because it was a pain to clean and got several cheap jute rugs instead, so far so good. Without rugs the dog and cat hair makes drifts in the corners and raises into the air when the dogs run around and the dogs slip and slide on smooth hardwood floors.