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We don't have dogs, but sometimes our cat will vomit on our hardwood floors, and it's really super easy to clean up. As long as they are sealed properly there shouldn't be a problem.
I would have thought that it wouldn't make a difference on hardwood. And certainly would be a lot cleaner than having carpet. But I'm not 100% sure about that.
I would definitely recommend hard floors if you're not going to do carpet again. We have hardwood & when the doggies mess on that, it's so easy to clean up!
I will never ever ever have carpet again. I have 3 cats and hardwood makes life so much easier! If there's ever an accident (vomit/hairballs in our house), it's so fast to clean up. I've never had the floor damaged by it.
You may want to consider a high quality laminate hardwood rather than regular hardwood. I found my cat's nails really scratched up the expensive hardwood floors I had in my condo. I had a good laminate put down in our house and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I'm an interior designer and I'm supposed to be morally opposed to it, but it's come a long way, you'd never know it wasn't real hardwood. The stuff is indestructible!
It is so much easier to hardwood than to clean carpet! Hardwood has come a long way, and it should be fine!
We are getting hardwood in our house this spring. I hate cleaning cat vomit from the carpet. Can't wait!
As the other ladies have said, as long as your floors are properly sealed, you should be fine. You should make sure to tell the installers to add an extra coat of sealant, and clean up any messes as soon as you see them. As long as nothing is just sitting on the hardwood for more than a day, it'll be fine.
You may also want to consider that your older lab may have a hard time walking on hardwood...you may need to put down some washable runners. Is there a way you could set up an inside potty area for him? Some puppy pads in a corner maybe?
Hardwood floors are THE BEST thing when you have animals that are messy! First of all, dogs don't like peeing on the hardwood as much, so they do it less. And when they do, you can see it's there and it's easier to clean up. I can't tell you how many times I stepped in dog pee that had been sitting for a few hours and soaked in to FMIL's dark, super absorbent carpet, and then had to spend 15 minutes cleaning it.
As others have said, as long as they're sealed and you clean them properly, you'll be fine!
I've heard that as long as you clean it up ASAP its fine, wood is damaged by water, so if the urine or liquid sits on the floor for a while it will eventually wear on it.
Other questions for others with hardwood floors, we are looking to spend a pretty penny putting hardwood floors in our two living areas and have heard about dogs nails scatching it. We would do a nice laminate, but the sellers already have this beautiful wood in the dining & down the halls, so we don't want to rip it up, instead we want to continue it to the living areas.
So, if we do a really good job at keeping our dogs nails trimmed, do you think the wood will still scratch?
FI and I are looking for a house right now and one of the things on our "want" list is wood laminate floors and partially for this reason! Soooooo easy to clean up. The floors can scratch, so you'll want to make sure to keep the furbabies' nails trimmed.
@AnnieAAA - The FILs have an English Bully, and his nails don't scratch the floor. They keep them fairly well maintained, but he is clumsy, so I think if they were going to get scratched by any dog, it'd be him! The only thing that has scratched the floor was the kitchen chairs when the bottom leg pad protector came off and someone dragged it across the floor.
My floors scratched where my cats would "push off" for running (top and bottom of stairs). Higher traffic areas are always more at risk for damage of course. I know there are brands that advertise being gator tough or whatever, but I haven't heard that they're actually any better.
If you have an extra board of the hardwood that the previous owners left in storage for you, take that with you to the store, you may be able to find a really great laminate to match. We have mismatched floors (couldn't match the existing) and I found it actually works really well to distinguish between the two spaces. We tried to pick up on the tones of our diningroom floor with our livingroom floor. We also ran the grain perpendicular to each other (so diningroom boards and grains run east/west and livingroom runs north/south). I'm really happy with the way it turned out!
I am also on the side of laminate for pet owner's. I have hardwood in my family room,foyer, steps, and landing and laminate in my daughters room. My daughter's floor is still flawless but all other areas show some wear and tear.
Ours are super scratched up from our hyper 80lb dog... The guy who refinished them sayd he thought they were fir which is harder than pine but softer than oak. Maybe if they were oak they wouldnt have scratched, but they were original to the home so we had no say in it.
If your main concern is potty accidents on the floor I just want to add that you may want to go with harwood, and not laminate, no matter what quality it is.
If you aren't home when the accidents happen and they sit on the laminate floors, the pieces of the floor will warp and look horrible. My FBIL and his wife have two dogs that aren't potty trained and they have completely destroyed their laminate floors. However, if you can get to the accidents quickly to clean them up then laminate should be fine, and it is usually quite a bit cheaper to install.
If you have stairs though, make sure you keep them carpeted so your fur babies don't slip while going up and down them!
I'll just add that some friends of ours just put in teak wood floors. Not only are they beautiful, but they're practically impossible to scratch up. I think when we re-do our flooring, we'll also go with teak.
@Mrs. Spring: what are teak wood floors? I've never heard of them...Do they cost more then typical wood floors, or are they typically more affordable?
@Bakerella: Thats a good idea, if we could find a laminate that matches, that would be great!
I like my hardwoods because they are easy to keep clean. I let Roomba run at least once a week to pick up kitty and puppy fur. But my only problem is the FI and the Puppy knocked a lamp off the side table and the base but a gash in my floors in two spots. Mine our the laminate hardwoods. The dogs nails don't seem to really bother the floors. Just that stinking lamp! It's gone now ;)
@ AnnieAAA - Teak is just a kind of wood, like pine/oak/bamboo/etc... Apparently it doesn't scratch easily because of the amount of silica in the wood, and it doesn't warp when exposed to water/weather like other woods because of it's natural oils, so it's a really good choice for pet owners who are concerned about 1) scratching and 2) pet accidents warping the wood.
Ok, we just finished building our home and have been living in it for a few months and already want to get rid of our carpet! We did laminate in the foyer and formal dining. Wanted to do living room but was not sure how the dog would do with his nails on the laminate hardwood. Well fast forward to now, he does perfect on the laminate but we cant keep the carpet clean due to dirt from being outside. We live out in the country and our cornfield has no grass yet so our yard is pure mud. I clean, wipe and digs his paws out each time but sometimes it is just not enough. I had a melt down the other day because our new carpet well, does not look so new and I even bought a steam cleaner. It takes too long to clean, but only takes 5 minutes with the swifer wet jet to clean up the muddy prints on the laminate. Add kids soon and it is just not worth it with my ADD about cleanliness. So hubs said we can do it this fall, he really wants laminate wood too and can do it himself. I am going to see though this summer how it goes after a professional cleaning. I just wish we would have spent the little extra money before to do all laminate wood, but honestly we did not know at the time. The only negative I know of, my Inlaws house is all hard wood and it does make it a little colder in the winter time. For me, thats what slippers are for.
We have hickory hardwood and LOVE them! Not a single puppy scratch! I highly recommend them! Here's a picture so you can see...
The only time you really have to worry about ruining a hardwood floor with pet messes is if it is a VERY old floor and the wood has not been properly sealed, or if you leave the mess there and they repeatedly go back to that spot to where eventually the ammonia in the urine will eat away at the wood. But, I'm quite sure you would clean it up waaaay before that would become a problem.
We just moved from an all carpeted space to one with all hardwood and it is AMAZING!
We have three cats and with hair balls, vomit, food messes, kitty litter, etc. etc. etc. - it makes life SO much easier (and cleaner!)
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We need to replace our carpet badly. We have 3 dogs, including a beagle with housebreaking issuses and a old lab with less bladder control than he had in his youthful days. If we leave the house for more than 6 hours, we are bound to come home to at least one accident. The carpet smells, and we are too embarrassed to have people over.
So we want to replace the carpet, possibly with hardwood floors. Has anyone had doggie accidents ruin the floors? Is hardwood not the way to go? Thanks in advance for any tips!