Floors

[Bklk]

I'm getting ready to put in a floor. I don't want rugs I would much rather have wood. I know there are different kinds of wood which are better with dogs. Any ideas would be helpful.
Thanks
Bill

[Truffle]

I have hickory in the dining room, and plan to put it down to replace the carpet in the rest of the house. Hickory is very hard and resistant to claw marks, yet reasonably priced.

[John Lash]

Try Lumber liquidaters. They are all over the country. I ordered some years ago and had it shipped from Michigan and it was still reasonable. They have a lot of different types of wood. I used Australian cypress since it was one of the harder ones.

Real wood is nice but laminate is more practical. When I bought the wood it had like a 50 year finish warranty. I mentioned to the salesman about the dogs and since this was so hard and a long warranty I would probably be OK. He said, "If you have dogs they will scratch the floors." He was right...

[blackasmollases]

I have hickory as well. Pre-finished full 3/4 hardwood flooring. The finish will scratch but with a harder wood
Won't gouge as bad. And like the fact with the solid hardwood I can get a few refinishes out if it

[roseberry]

bamboo is really hard, reasonably priced and a replinishable "green" building material. i have maple in my home and the dogs have murdered it.

[Thomas D]

Here is the Janka hardness scale of various wood flooring:

http://www.countyfloors.com/about_janka.html

[jpws]

if you are concerned about it scratching, don't get wood. For the first couple years it will look like crap....beyond that, it will be 100% scratched and then look natural...unless you have rugs. Another option is ceramic tile...no scratching!

[Sharon Potter]

Another vote for tile.

[Pam Spears]

We have wood in the kitchen and recently replaced all of our wall-to-wall carpet with tile. Love the tile, it's easy to clean and no scratches. We put some thought into picking a tile with a little texture, so it wouldn't be slippery, but not so much that it would be hard to clean. Love it, wish we could justify replacing the wood with tile too.

[Thomas D]

If we had it to do over again, no wood, but tile with area rugs.