Need Suggestions On Replacing Carpet!!
 

Dixie and Daisha have almost RUINED my carpet. They are 90% trained to pee pads, but have picked out 2-3 "no no" spots to pee. I have tried putting a pad in those areas (I hate to have pee pads strowed everywhere :confused: ) but they will MOVE THE PADS and still pee on the carpet. I find myself steam cleaning about 3 times a week! Yes, 3 times a WEEK.
Someone suggested hardwood floors, but I haven't checked on prices. I am curious as to what kind of flooring other Yorkies have and what has worked best. I"m going to seriously start looking next week -- I can't stand it anymore. (but getting rid of them is NOT an option)

just to let you know. I used to live in a house with hardwood floors and a dog that would be on them...he messed up the floor.

I was thinking about hardwood floors too, but I have a friend who was them, and her cats put stains on them. So that's out. I think carpet is the best way to go. They do have carpet that is stain proof to puppies, but I'm not sure just how stain proof it is. I use our carpet cleaner alot too. And we change our carpet every five years, we have to with five kids and three fur babies.
Good Luck with picking your new floor out!
:) :) :) :)

What about tile? That may be an option for you. We just replaced the carpet in the house we recently bought...I wanted wood or tile but lost out to my tenderfoot husband who insisted on carpet.

We own a flooring biz....I have ceramic tile ..the large size 20 x 20 throughout my house - I can send you to my website for alot of information - and tile is EASY to clean - Hardwood CAN stain/dis-color from urine if the topcoat is not the very best.... but you can't go wrong with tile -

Here is my house BEFORE we started replacing the floors - Before on the kitchen - then after

then the den.... after my Husband lost his mind and thought he was designing a Mausoleum

In case anyone wondered...yes....after my hubby got his Mausaleum Den...he did not stop there - he also did the Foyer and Halls ....I'm not crazy about how the hall came out..... but you can have tile throughout your house - and there are Runner Carpets you can put over the Tile - it looks pretty...

Area Rugs can be used anywhere on Tile and washed if you have any pee on them - I switch out between 3 of them in my house.....

ps...no matter how much you clean your carpet - the pee is UNDER it in the Pad...so you won't get rid of the smell without replacing the pad or cleaning that also...

Your house looks great Villette! I do have hardwood floors in our living room and dining room, and no stains have set yet. I didn't even know that it could be ruined. But I am glad that someone mentioned it because, now we are in the midst of deciding what to do about the carpet in the downstairs family room. I love carpet and the coziness that it gives, but Deegan is a factor as well as if we ever get flooded. So we have been debating over hardwood and tile. Tile seems the best way to go. So I'll pretend to let my bf win this one! Hehe!

haha - Tile is so easy to clean -I treated mine with a Surface Sealer so nothing penetrates it - but it CAN stain also if you don't use a sealer....

Hardwoods can be re-surfaced if they stain or get scratched - so both are ok - and way easier than Carpet to keep clean and odor free....

I have laminated wood flooring (look up wilsonart flooring on google). It looks just like hardwood, they also have tile look as well as other designs. I LOVE it!! My first floor is completely done and I would do my 2nd floor if I could figure out what to do with the stairs, apparently they don't have it for stairs, or maybe it was just too expensive, can't remember. Bonnie has had "accidents" on the laminate flooring, and it just cleans right up. I would recommend this for anyone. Everyone that comes over thinks it is hardwood unless we tell them different. The price is not much different from hardwood, but we are so rough on floors with 3 boys and 2 dogs, that I didn't want to get anything that could easily be damaged. For cleaning, I just run a damp cloth over it. When she has accidents I will use a small amount of cleaner to kill the germs.

Wilsonart it great flooring...We have it on my website also - It's got a great reputation and is really durable...Wood & Laminates CAN chip or scratch after normal wear and tear....but the products these days are vastly improved over 10 years or so ago

Since my suggestion of tile flooring was so well received :D I thought I'd throw this in for those who love the look of hardwood floors but want something that won't stain or need refinishing. Did you know they make tile that looks like hardwood oak flooring? It looks really nice and if my (tenderfoot) husband wouldn't have been so persistant about carpet we may have ended up with that throughout the house.

Villette...your floors look great. We tiled our front porch and added an inside border with little cornerstones and I really like the way it turned out...the sunroom is next and after that...countertops!

Whatever flooring you decide on...make sure you get a sealant so it doesn't soak through.

Your tile floor is so pretty. It makes me want to change my carpet out for tiles.

guys how much do you think it costs to tile a basic room , umm i dunno maybe like 12 x15 or so??? I know there are many variables, but just a guess-stimate???/

I agree about never getting it all out...I cannot wait until we can replace our carpet with tile. And tile will last forever really.
I think your tile is gorgeous. Even the mauseleum den... ;)

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