Best Floors For The Doggy Home

[SmoothieGirl]

Great thread, but I'm not sure if I'm just more confused now. I have carpet in the bedrooms that needs replacing and tiles everywhere else. The cat and I love the tiles, but Bronte isn't the best on them, hence I have mats down everywhere too. I'm thinking of getting floating floorboards, but I'm a little worried about too much scratching.

That being said I really don't want to replace the carpet with more carpet as its just too hard to keep clean. More research, more research...

[marinapoint]

Hi just want to share my experiences! We're just renovating a smallish house (only 10.5 squares) and have polished the tassie oak floorboards just over oh about 2 months ago. They are VERY scratched already!!! We have 3 dogs also predominantly indoors, and wherever they are, there are scratches! I told the man who polished that we would have dogs and he said there is nothing you can do. Just suck it up and live with it. We went with a matt finish as this shows the scratches and dust less, but you can still see them! Especially around the back door where they go in and out.

I would never ever ever ever (!! LOL) recommend floorboards to those people who have dogs. Particularly in areas of high traffic, or simply where the doggies are.

The scratches are awful and dont look nice. And I'm not really fussy. But still its like 2k to do it, and I've never do it again!

At our own built home we will definitely be putting in tiles. These are far more hard wearing, easy to clean and maintain. I may put the floodboards in the bedrooms, but definitely never in lounge or doggie friendly areas.

The good thing about the floorboards is yes they are way easier to clean, but once scratched, theres not much you can do.

Goodluck!

[cointreau]

When I bought my house I replaced the old carpet with new and the lino with carpet excet in the two kitchen areas. I rented a house with tiles and they were dangerous to both dogs and humans because they were so slippery. My carpet is light biscuit colour with a texture not hard to keep clean I vacuum regularly and also have a shampooer I use when necessary. Floor boards sound great but I don't think I would cope if they were badly scratched and slipping would be an issue for me again. Good Luck finding your perfect flooring.

[Daisy]

I am doing up my house and I have done a lot of research into floor coverings - the ones I like best are vinyl slats, they are vinyl but look exactly like timber and are also textured like timber, but are much more durable - no scratching. Only problem is they are very expensive I wanted them in my bedroom but am going to go for carpet (doggies aren't allowed in the bedroom, they have the run of the rest of the house). My room is around 13 square metres and it was going to cost almost $1300 for the vinyl slats, around $900 for vinyl on a roll, can't remember now how much the laminate wooden flooring was now, i think around $700, and I could get carpet from around $500. So a huge difference in prices!

[pie]

Daisy, my Aunty has those vinyl planks, she got hers very cheap, something like $15 - $20 per sqm. They put them down themselves though.

[brightonrock]

Thank you for all the ideas.

I think maybe for me the oiled hardwood will be a good choice. I guess every house had to have wall to wall carpet when the house was built.

After a few dogs and pups well you can imagine,

[renee08]

I'm not too sure how to insert sections from other posts, but I would most definately NOT recommend cork tiles. We bought a house with these 18 months ago- admittedly the house is around 20 years old but my dogs have completely destroyed the cork tiles in this house. When they get up a bit of speed, they slide a long way when they try to stop- they also dig in their nails to try (unsuccessfully) to stop . It is to the point now that there are small chunks out of the cork where they have ran through.

We move into our house we are building in about 3 weeks. Tiles everywhere (except bedrooms). And not the really glossy ones. I'm no tile expert but I would imagine the glossy ones would show up heaps more hair than normal tiles.

[Smartypaws]

I am doing up my house and I have done a lot of research into floor coverings - the ones I like best are vinyl slats, they are vinyl but look exactly like timber and are also textured like timber, but are much more durable - no scratching. Only problem is they are very expensive I wanted them in my bedroom but am going to go for carpet (doggies aren't allowed in the bedroom, they have the run of the rest of the house). My room is around 13 square metres and it was going to cost almost $1300 for the vinyl slats, around $900 for vinyl on a roll, can't remember now how much the laminate wooden flooring was now, i think around $700, and I could get carpet from around $500. So a huge difference in prices!

Hi. We are building a new house and have done a complete backflip from wanting solid wood floors to going for these vinyl planks too. They look just like wood, with the durability of vinyl.....in fact, we saw them in a display home and OH and I argued about whether they were wood, or laminate, or .....no, couldn't possibly be - vinyl . I am all about being able to live in a home, and that includes my dogs, without worrying about every little scratch or spill.

I'm not sure which ones you have looked at Daisy, but the ones we are getting are $55 a sqm, laid and finished.....it is costing us $5500 to have the main house areas done, 100sqm. Have a look at the Harmony brand. Or Pm for supplier if you want.

[Lablover]

I am doing up my house and I have done a lot of research into floor coverings - the ones I like best are vinyl slats, they are vinyl but look exactly like timber and are also textured like timber, but are much more durable - no scratching. Only problem is they are very expensive I wanted them in my bedroom but am going to go for carpet (doggies aren't allowed in the bedroom, they have the run of the rest of the house). My room is around 13 square metres and it was going to cost almost $1300 for the vinyl slats, around $900 for vinyl on a roll, can't remember now how much the laminate wooden flooring was now, i think around $700, and I could get carpet from around $500. So a huge difference in prices!

We opted for the vinyl slats. Love them. Tiles did not appeal due to grout, coldness and harder to clean. Our house is built on a concrete slab.

The vinyl slates look good, tough, surprisingly soft under foot and warm. The textured slats help our five labs to grip the surface also.

Problem is the original poster has wooden floors, no idea myself on the durability of the particular wood. In one house we had baltic, which we sanded before sale.

Carpet and dogs - never again.

[Miss Danni]

When I bought my house 11 years ago, I ripped up all of the carpet and laid slate through the entire house, bedrooms included. All of our GSDs are house dogs and the floors cop a beating. I am also an asthma sufferer and my life is much improved without curtains and carpet!

Slate is not slippery, it is cool in summer and warm in winter, softer than tiles and you can get a variety of different sealants and therefore "gloss" types. It does need to be resealed every so often but that is not too much hassle with a good broom and vacuum cleaner. It is easy to mop, sweep and vacuum, hard wearing and fleas get no foothold. And it looks great!

Turkishdelight, this may not suit your circumstances, but I would never have anything other than slate in any house I own ever again.

[Pawfect]

I have vinyl plnks that look like wood. The planks are easy to lay yourself (look like planks of timber), and ended up being about $30 per square metre I think (we got it on special though). They have the wood grains and everything (therefore not slippery like tiles) - look a bit like floating timber/laminate floors, but mine isn't quite as shiny (we purposely got a matt finish so scuff marks don't show up as easily).

I got it from Harvey Norman - it's an exclusive special design where the planks stick together side by side, and you don't need to prep the area like other vinyl flooring (which can be expensive). Great for spills and I haven't seen a single scratch yet.

Only downside is that you still get scuff marks, but these buff out very easily. And since mine are a very dark colour and light shines directly on them, they show the dust a bit (but I guess polished timber would too).

[GeckoTree]

That click bamboo flooring is good or click laminate floorboards, real floorbords are great too but the scratches could be a bother. make use of floor rugs though they can get cold in winter.

[juice]

i have vinyl, although my dogs now live outside i also had the whole house in the uk done when they lived inside.

there are very different qualities, and styles, some of mine look like marble, others wood with different borders.

i have 10 different ones in my place

[poochmad]

We were going to put vinyl down for our dogs (the top of the range stuff that looks like real wood - thick, wide and long), but instead friends talked us out of it and recommended wooden floors that have been oiled. The look is great and our house value has gone up. Good thing is that if the floors get scratched, you just sand them back and they're as good as new.