I am considering replacing my 5 year old oak floors with a laminate product, but for many reasons I am reluctant to do so.

My kitchen/great room is a high traffic area. It seems I am the house all my kids friends want to hang out at--and that's fine with me, but my floors sure do take a beating. I also have 3 dogs, one of them is a 140 lb Newfoundland who comes in through the mudroom (off the kitchen) often soaking wet after a unauthorized dip in our pond or pool. Other times she is rough-housing with the other two dogs, which takes it toll on the floors.

I guess my questions are...
1. Are there any new/improved sealing products out there that will offer better protection for my floors?
2. What about engineered woods-how do their protecive coatings hold up?
3. Does anyone have any reccomendations should I go the laminate route as far as brands with the best warranties?

Thanks for any help and advice.
Nancy

While some prefinished floors have very durable finishes (aluminum oxide and ceramics), real wood floors will show wear after some time and the amount of use you descibe. My preference would be to resand your floors and use a very tough commercial coating like Bona "Traffic" or Absolute Coating's "Trex+". Other finish options which may be available to you are acid curing (Synteko or Bacca Glitsa) or a moisture cured urethane. Many finishers do not like using the last two because of the fumes and flamability issues. But you may live in an area where they are commonly used ( Chicago and Seattle ). I don't think replacing with a engineered will help much. And while laminates are quite durable, they still look fake and cannot be renewed once worn out. Regular maintainence recoats with a commercial floor finish would be the way to go, IMO (unless you rip it all out and go with a porcelan floor tile)

Nancy,

I have 2 dogs and to very young boys- I live on laminate, but love wood. At this time of my life I probably wouldn't install wood on my floors, but I wouldn't spend to replace it either. Considering what a good laminate (one worth installing not the bottom line stuff everyone sells by the pallet) will cost you installed, you could probably have your floors refinished twice. Personally I expect once is all you'll need for a while if you'll take some advice;
#1 - Study your floors. By looking closely you'll not only learn where to put area rugs, you'll also probably see the directions from which the abuse is coming. Now you can place obstacles to slow down the traffic.
#2 - Kids will be kids and dogs will be dogs, but they don't need to "Be" where you live. Set some rules and "off limits" areas. I know that isn't easy, but you're not helping anyone by letting them rip up your place. The kids hang at your place because they don't get hassled. They still need to learn to respect other peoples property. If you have part of a basement or another area they can call theirs, good. If they have to cross your property without damaging it in order to enjoy it, better.
#3 - "Shoes Off" and clean feet only! You've got a mud room, use it. If you could get a half door at the mud room, you could intercept a lot (particularily the dogs). A waiting chain in the mud room for the dogs would also be good to hold them till the kids can clean them up.
#4 - Consider a rustic distressed look, and a penetrating oil finish that you can learn to touch up yourself. Depending on how well you do on the other points, you may or may not need to go this route.
#5 - Last but not least, get the whole house on board! Considering what it's going to cost to get your floor redone, Disney World should probably wait another year (that'll get their attention).

I realize that this will be hard to implement, but if you don't take back control of your house (to some degree anyway) you'll need concrete floors (Sorry Gary, but I've seen what a pack of dogs can do to tile and grout. It's not always enough.) Believe me when I say that with laminate, all you'll be doing is replacing it every three years or so, given the abuse you describe. Oh, and engineered wood wears no better than solid.

The only other thing I can say is start the training long before you have the floors redone. It's only after you see what progress you've made (or not) that you'll know where to go. Hopefully not concrete!

Good luck!