I decided to go with a laminate flooring for several reasons. The basement leads to the backyard and the dogs go in and out. I just dealt with four straight days of rain and wet animals on carpet. That would ruin a hardwood floor quickly. I've had synthetic hard flooring before. It is durable and wears quite well. It will stand up to the daily wet moppings needed to clean up the dirt the pets bring in. The rest of the house is hardwood but it was easy enough to get a matching cherry pattern that is quite striking. This particular floor is also a composite composite with moisture barriers and a vinyl top layer. It makes it even more scratch resistant and slightly padded so that it is not as hollow click clack as many synthetic floorings are.
The first things the dogs did was run full tilt into the room to go outside. They promptly slid across the floor and slammed into the wall. Of course they blamed the floor for this problem. Thankfully, they are not stupid and got over it. The yard is still a muddy mess so they were nice enough to give me a test run and drag mud all over the room. I then mopped it up and dragged their dog beds from upstairs. Its a lot cooler in here with the hard flooring.
How they suffer. Perhaps someone will call animal control to come and save them. These are my girls, Nyx and Autumn. Nyx was not named for the Nyx. She is almost 5 and I only met Eve a year ago. I had a German Shepherd named Nox. Sadly, I lost Nox to old age earlier this year. Anyway, Nyx and Nox's names came from this article in Wikipedia. Autumn got her name because its just what happened and it works for her being red/brown.
I also had other projects. I had horrible vertical blinds that were irritating. I changed those out for a curtain rod and a hanging set of curtains. I moved the desk around, cleaned and reset all of my wires. I love Velcro cable ties. Everything is so neat. The houses wireless isn't back on line yet but I am getting there. I did get my computer set back up although its not online as of yet.
That is my little work station. Two 27 inch monitors, a 24 inch that can be horizontal or vertical and my Alienware M14X so that I can never be to far away from Eve. Heaven forbid. The desk is actually a kitchen table. Its fantastic and incredibly sturdy. I know some people are like Walmart? The thing was 99 dollars and I can not praise it enough as a desk. I drilled a hole in one corner to run my cables down. I love it and it wears like iron. I do use a mousepad but I use a flat one. I can't recommend this particular mouse pad enough as well. Anyway, I'm not tucked so much in the corner as it seems in the picture.
Once I'm done and have dinner I'll finish fitting ships for my fleet tomorrow. I'm excited about it and hope to have a good turn out. My first two stories were also posted to the contest. I've been working on my third one but this day wound up busier then expected with the flooring and rebuilding the office into the functional room that it needs to be.
I still need to load my bookshelves and pick up some shelf organizers for all the little bits and pieces as well as a second cabinet. I'll do that tomorrow and Sunday. Plus I'll play Eve. This is shaping up to be a good weekend.
Oh yes, while I am posting pictures of my home. This is my gemstone globe I picked up in Vegas while at Eve Vegas and my reading corner with my massively over-sized chair.
I'm always leery of any areas that get wet even semi-often and laminate, as laminate is made on MDF most of the time, and most MDF really swells when there's moisture, though a few of the new products don't have that issue too bad.
ReplyDelete(I'm who tweeted you earlier about cats & flooring installers btw)
Yah that's why we went with this product. It has all sorts of moisture things and its industrial grade. The area is not inherently wet or damp. However, rainy days happen and over time that and the wear will just damage the wood. My last place was wall to wall pergo and I had zero problems. This flooring is a lot nicer and I'm game for it.
DeleteThe other nice thing is that it isn't that expensive. If it turns out to be terrible I can replace it.
This room is also sitting on the concrete slab for the houses foundation.
Being on the concrete slab usually means there's more possibility for moisture issues, concrete is quite porous, and can act like a sponge if you there's high ground-water or anything of the like.
DeleteIt does sound like you've done your research on the product though. If you've got a scrap somewhere yet, I'd throw it in a bucket of water for a day or so, see if it swells. Laminates can be great floors, the problem is just there's so much garbage on the market right now.