- Find a Real Estate Professional
- Realtors®
- Mortgage Lenders
- Home Improvement Pros
- Other Real Estate Services
- Review an Agent, Lender or Pro
- Marketing on Zillow
- Real Estate Agent Advertising
- Join the Professional Directory
- Popular
- Real Estate Market Reports
- More
Replies (27)
- Kaye Norenberg
- Contributions:824
Hardwood floor from $6-13 square foot where I live.
Adios I think that is a pretty fair figure, although the range definitely goes way higher than that, i don't think you're factoring in installation, and are you including laminate as well?
Here is the best advice I can give on this. Contractors are dying right now for work!! Call up your local Home Depot and have them come out and look at the place when you do your home inspection. It's free, it eliminates the guesswork, and did I mention it's free? How many times do you get a professional to come out to your house and give you free advice? Take that and run with it!!
By the way Home Depot has incredible deals on carpet and HW. People think because they're a chain they'll be expensive but my crew of rehabbers has lost a lost of flooring jobs to them lately because they cant touch Home Depot's prices.
- sharon12
- Contributions:77
Great, advice, thanks!
- Thomas Richard, "TRS Designs"
- Contributions:64
Hi Sharon,
First, good luck with the new home if you move forward.
Lowe's also has a home pro service where they come to the house and give free advice and estimates. It's something they started about a year ago and is a national program so it doesn't matter where you live.
As far as the hardwood goes, materials start at about $2/sq' and they can go way up from there depending on the wood you choose. I always advise my clients to stick with the name brands and avoid the cheapy cheap stuff you can find out there(you flooring takes a huge amount of abuse, so you don't want inferior product & shoudl you have a problem, the big brands are ussually easier to deal with) .
Installation prices are going to vary as well, but figure a starting price of at least $3-4 for a reputable installer. Grab your phone book and call local installer... they will most often give you the info you want over the phone or come to the home for free or a small fee(gas prices are affecting this) and you'd be surprised how competitive they can be against the home center's pricing... and you will almost always get better service from the smaller companies. Don't work with a company that cannot provide you with references and try to visit at least one completed job that the company has done and one job that is during the install process. This allows you to see their completed quality and also how they will treat your home during the installation.
When your ready to tackle the kitchen project, feel free to contact me with any questions, as that is my specialty.
- J Steinberg Design
- Contributions:92
I agree with TRS Design- local contractrs pricing is very competitive to big box. I never use or recommend big box. Give it to mom and pop- but make sure their work is good, like TRS stated.
- Dave Greene, "dgreene8"
- Contributions:5
Hello Sharon,
The prices look legit. I would stay away from the cheaper laminates. if they get scratched or burned, you may not be able to repair the surface. laminates look like the real thing but the "wood" ( finished surface) part is very thin. You can look at a sample at a flooring store by checking out the cross section of a piece.
Remember 3/4" solid more pricey wood can be refinished a few times.
I just helped a friend install bamboo he bought from Home Depot. It has the china star stamped on the back. His Jack Russell marred it up in a few weeks. Good luck! Dave
The prices look legit. I would stay away from the cheaper laminates. if they get scratched or burned, you may not be able to repair the surface. laminates look like the real thing but the "wood" ( finished surface) part is very thin. You can look at a sample at a flooring store by checking out the cross section of a piece.
Remember 3/4" solid more pricey wood can be refinished a few times.
I just helped a friend install bamboo he bought from Home Depot. It has the china star stamped on the back. His Jack Russell marred it up in a few weeks. Good luck! Dave
- sallygarbutt
- Contributions:2
Can you refinish bamboo flooring?
- sallygarbutt
- Contributions:2
Can you refinish bamboo flooring?
- Dave Greene, "dgreene8"
- Contributions:5
Great question! Never refinished bamboo. If you get a chance check out a cross section to see how many pieces make up a 3" by 9/16" thick piece. The whole 9/16" thickness is pieced but solid, not like a laminate. I guess you could refinish it. Have no idea how it takes stain or sands. If you attempt, good luck, let me know how things go.
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
First, use a prefinished hardwood. Material prices will be higher but installation will be less. Also, the finish on any hardwood is better due to the controlled environment, UV curing between the 6 to 10 coats of finish on top of the floor, as well as most profinished hardwood flooring has an abrasive material in the base layer such as aluminum oxide, ceramic particles, etc. The helps the "looking good life" of the hardwood. It will still scratch and dent but if you're in the home for 6 months or longer, it's the way to go. Also, another advantage of prefinished wood is the dust mess is kept to a minumum. Even so called dustless systems some wood installers use when they sand and finish wood floors spews dust around. Depending on the species of wood, you will pay from 3.50 to 15.00 square foot for material with the average around 6.00. Labor will be a couple of dollars less than labor paid to a contractor to sand and finish due to the fact he will be in and out a lot quicker and will have a lot less trips to your home to finish the job. One aspect of a prefinished floor is that most come with a micro bevel along the four edges. Some people thing they're dirt catchers but if you vacuum the floor, it's not an issue. Also, consider the height of a solid 3/4" thick floor versus a thinner engineered wood floor. The transition from where it will go from wood to another flooring has to be considered. Good luck.
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
PS: Stay away from big box stores!! Go with the experts, stores that specialize in flooring. Prices are competitve and in labor and materials, you get what you pay for.
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
As
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
ar
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
As far as refinishing a wood floor, a solid 3/4" wood floor can be sanded only as far down as the tounge and groove are, which you would never do. An engineered wood floor can also be sanded down and recoated so look at how thick the top veneer is...some are substantial, some are not. You will se the thinner the top layer, the less expensive the floor will be.
Stay away from big box stores? Why? If they are keeping $10,000,000 in hardwood flooring in stock obviously quite a few people are happy enough with the results to keep hiring them to come out and install more. In an economy where every material and commodity is going up while incomes and wealth are going done how can you blindly give advice like that? The bottom line is that Home Depot and stores like that have some talented professionals doing their installations- many of them from former independent companies that left because they liked the benefits and security of working for a major corporation.
As I previously mentioned, a large portion of my flooring contractors stopped working for us independently and went to larger companies for the reasons I listed above and also because Home Depot kicked their butts in pricing with the same quality and attention to detail. I can show you 8 homes my clients rehabbed this year, all of them with big box flooring and installation and they look simply beautiful.
I understand you're trying to push for the little guy because that's what your company is but this is a message board designed to give people un-biased answers not slanted self-serving crap ones that benefit only the person who is getting a check out of the deal. If you want to be taken seriously as a professional I'd suggest opening yourself up to the possiblity that you don't have all the answers and that there's always a better alternative than what you're offering people.
How many idiot contractors finish a problem and then disapear into thin air when problems start to come up- on purpose and just because they went under in the time in between. Are you too ignorant to realize that the prospect of getting a product installed by a company that stands behind it's work with guarantees and that is not going anywhere anytime soon is a big plus for a lot of people- especially during these scary times!
Stay away from big box stores!! Go with the experts, stores that specialize in flooring. Prices are competitve and in labor and materials, you get what you pay for.
Think about how stupid what you wrote actually is. You're saying they should stay away from big box stores because the little guys are competitive in pricing. If you were saying you blew their prices out of the water then you'd have an argument but that isn't what you said. Anytime I can go with a company with a proven reputation who's prices are the same as some unknown why would I even consider the latter? And if you're going to sit here and tell me that there's some huge difference in quality you're out of your mind. Contractors are begging for work right now so the guy working at home depot installing floors that is supporting a family and has good benefits has a hell of a lot more motivation to do a great job because the last thing he wants to do is get fired because there's 50 guys who can do the same job out of work waiting at the door to take his place.
Realtors get slammed for being sleazy used car salesman but GC's are by far the worst people on earth when it comes to this type of thing. I guess that's why I fired 11 of you guys this year- your attitudes suck, you lie and BS every chance you get, and you think you actually bring something unique to the table that 10,000 others can't in a heartbeat.
Maybe you should go work at Home Depot so you see how a successful company is run. GM does a hell of a lot more than just make cars in case you weren't aware, does that mean I shouldn't buy a car from them since that's not the only thing they do? Should I not buy fruit from my groccery store because they also sell canned goods?
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
Scott, in my area, Home Depot and Lowes buys close outs and discontinued flooring. I also know a lot of smaller floor covering stores open up as close to one of those stores as they can because of the poor information given out and the lack of selection by those big boxes. Whatever floats your boat but my experience with my clients is that going up against the big boxes is like taking candy from a baby. My dealers offer better service and better quality as well as competitve pricing. They love it when they know a customer of theirs is looking at a big box store. Glad it's working out for you. It's also working out for me. Oh, I'm not a realtor or a GC.
You're certainly not a Realtor and you could have fooled me about being a GC...if it wallk like a duck, talks like a duck, well you know how the saying goes right?
- ANDREW.ROGOVIC
- Contributions:260
I recently renovated/built a home. We put down a qulaity, I believe 3 inch wide hardwood floors throughout. We also chose to put a slightly darker stain which I believe cost an additional 75 cents a foot. If I remember correctly the price of floor, installation and staining was just about $6 a foot.
Prefinsished floors are nice but sometimes they have a tendency to look fale or like pergo. But that is just my opinion. Good luck with at and certainly do your research on prices and installer.
- FlooredAgain
- Contributions:138
Well, I am an Oregon Duck!!
- Brian Gwaltney, "Metro Maintenance"
- Contributions:315
I'm a gc. And I recently looked at what it took to become a home depot painter franchisee. Based on their process, background check etc I have to support Floored again's argument. You will probably get better quality for lower cost from the small guys. To quote the HD franchise rep; "Yeah you have to pay us 26% of your bottom line, but you can mark up everything you sell 20% because you've got the home depot brand behind you."
- mina36
- Contributions:3478
oh, that's nice !
- BungalowMo
- Contributions:232
Before you make a final decision...what's underneath that carpet?? Have you looked?? Might just be some sweet wood under there already. Horse...then Cart!
- BungalowMo
- Contributions:232
One more thing, if/when you do decide on flooring...think about this: The small, independant, local guy is far more likely to be at your disposal with after-the-sale issues, and besides, he's probably been in business for 50 years. He needs to eat & take care of his family too.
I always go with them...unless they have a rep for being a total moron.
- Jason_k
- Contributions:2
I would go with a big box store like home depot
Hardwood Flooring
I am about to make an offer on a home that needs some updating which at the price they are asking, I am willing to take on some projects. One project is the home has wall to wall carpet in the 2 bedrooms and dining and living room. I'm not a fan of carpet and would like it removed and hardwood floors installed. I've gone onto some flooring websites and see samples and tips but have no idea about pricing.
Can anyone give me tips on what to look for in hardwood flooring and also a ballpark figure of what the project would cost for approximately 900 sq ft. This would be great as I also have to update the kitchen which will be expensive so I want to know what I'm taking on. Thanks!
Stating a discriminatory preference in an advertisement for housing is illegal. If you think this content is discriminatory or otherwise inappropriate and feel it should be removed from Zillow, please let us know by completing the information above.
We will review this content. Thanks for helping make the site more useful to everyone. To learn more, read Zillow's Good Neighbor Policy.