That depends on whether you can do it yourself and what kind of tile you choose. We just did our 6 by 16 front porch with borders and pretty nice tile for about $400.00 and we bought basic tile for the 10 by 16 sunroom for about the same. That included everything we needed to complete the job and we did the work ourselves...it's really not that hard to do.

Vilette, can you post your website here, or is against any rules? I would love to check it out. :thumbup:

I replaced my den with Retroflooring, which is a new laminate that looks exactly like wood and is used for dance floors, so you can imagine how much abuse it can take. It is put down in planks, not sheets. My research before going to that type of flooring showed that indeed urine can and will seep into hardwood unless gotten up immediately. Although I like tile and have a lot of it in my house, it is very cold and hard on the legs if you stand on it long. I am very close to replacing all of my carpet with retroflooring but the warmth of carpeting when I get out of bed is hard to give up. I did buy a nice wool rug for the den and so far the girls have not peed on it and that is the room they are usually in. They also have favorite spots and unfortunately they are in the living room, which is carpeted right now. I've decided to pay a decorator to come, look at my house and make suggestions on what to do with the flooring as well as other areas that need an update. By the way, this flooring and hardwood was about the same price.

I would definitely get rid of the carpet. It doesn't matter how much you clean carpet it is still nasty dirty just under the surface and if you want to really be grossed out, take up your carpet yourself - it is a real eye opener and once you do it, you may not want to put it in your house again.

For anyone building a new house or a new addiiton to an existing house, you might consider staining the concrete - that's right - you put nothing over the concrete. It's a pretty new concept, and here in Texas, you see it in lots of the high end houses - you also see it in new stores like Walmart. I know it sounds bizare - but it's not. We built on a den, office and closet and the den has a western/American Indian motif and we stained the concrete floor a terra cotta color and it is absolutely beautiful. We did it ourselves and it only cost about $100.00 for the entire 800 square feet (we stained the office and closet the same color). I absolutely adore the concrete floor - in the heat of the Texas summers, it is so cool to put your bare feet on and the dogs just love it too. Of course, it is the same as tile in that respect. During the winter, you just put on house shoes to walk on it. You can also have a professional score the concrete and stain it different colores so that it looks just like tile. But that increases the cost considerably. Staining your concrete is not an option however, if you have had carpet, tile or something on top of it because to stain it you would have to sand down the concrete to get rid of all glue, etc. and that would cause a huge mess and be very costly. Anyway, I know concrete floors sound bizare, but I LOVE them! I have had 2 puppies and one old dog on the concrete floors and they have done everything imaginable (pee, poop, diarrhea, vomit - I know I'm gross - but trying to make a point) on the concrete and it has not caused one problem. I scrub it up with soap and water and then spray it with lysol!

We have hardwood flooring in the rest of the house and yes, it will stain if urine sits on it for a long time - but if you have a good topcoat of varnish/sealer, then the urine will not soak through immediately. Our older dogs have had some accidents on the hardwood floor and it has never stained (yet - fingers crossed). I thought I would miss my carpeting, especially in the winter and I have not missed it a bit, not one little bit. I'm so glad we got rid of that nasty carpet. There was tile in the kitchen and hall when we bought the house many years ago, and we recently put tile in the bathrooms. I will never never ever ever go back to carpet, unless I have no choice. I would think that laminate flooring would be an option, but I do know that it does chip because my daughter's laminate did chip - however, the newer heavy duty laminate (described above) sounds like it could hold up to almost anything.

Good luck with your decision!

I have a friend that just built their new home and stained the concrete. It's beautiful and they sealed it, too. For people with allergies, just get rid of the carpet and there will be a vast improvement! :D

Rowdy's Mom .... you're absolutely right ... the concrete is gorgeous!! Here in Colorado they do what they call "stamped" concrete and once it's stained and sealed it's unbelievable!! Since we are remodeling our house in AL, I checked on it and you can even have countertops done with the stamped concrete!! Way better than carpet for the floors!! ;)

Villette your floors look very nice.

It's not against any rules as far as I know but I pm' it to you :) I tried to be informative...that site took me 2 straight months to make :)
and ....Thank you Debbie.....

Would you also send the web site to me as after reading all this the carpet is going out of the great room as fast as I can tear it up. It was new last year (when we built) but it sounds like tile ( the large ones )would be the way to go with all my dogs here in the country. Thanks

I did...if you have any questions - I'll do my best to answer them :)

Villette, your tile floors are beautiful. I love to tile. I've don't both our bathrooms and showers and our sun porch. But up here in Michigan I don't think that it would be very warm with our cold winters, in the summer it would be great. We just ripped up all our carpeting on the main floor and are laying solid hardwood. It's got a 25 year guarantee on the top seal. So we'll see how it holds up to "accidents". Now on the main floor there is nothing but hardwood and laminate flooring in the kitchen. I love it! You wouldn't believe how bad the carpeting was when we ripped it up. I was steam cleaning once a month and I thought I was doing great, NOT! I think that I'll be happy with this. Here's a pic when we started, it's finished now, it looks beautiful. We just have to finish the computer room then it's all done...

Now THAT is a gorgeous room ! I love hardwood too - the Laminates these days are just like wood only better. It's looks beautiful

You have totally talked me out of any carpet and I love the concrete idea. Did I understand that it isn't doable or at least easily doable if carpet is now laid on concrete?

I posted my opinion on YorkieLady's other thread but here it is...

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I personally am all for wood flooring. In the new house we just built, we have all wood floors with tile in the bathrooms and utility room. We even laid it ourselves. I remember people saying "not even carpet in the bedrooms??!!". Nope, when you can actually see the dust/hair bunnies and dirt and dust (we live in the country) on that wood flooring because it has nowhere to hide, you realize just how much crap can hide in carpet! We have area rugs in places but I'm really satisfied with the "wood". It's great for allergies too. We got the Armstrong brand (laminate) that looks like wide plank flooring. LOVE IT! Really good price too. Good luck with whichever way you go on this!

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I've seen many stained concrete floors in newer houses and yes, they can be really pretty