Portland Laminate Flooring Challenges Wood for Supremacy

It's nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of your home's flooring. As they nearly continuously engage the senses of sight and touch, and to a lesser extent smell and sound, your flooring deserves your utmost attention when you undertake a comprehensive home remodeling project or simply want to refresh the look and feel of your home. A revolution in the flooring industry that has lost little of its initial luster, laminate flooring continues to shine as one of the best-valued flooring products, while stronger and better lines of laminate flooring come out seemingly every single year. Moreover, the beautiful look, pleasant feel, low maintenance, and high durability of laminate makes it great for essentially every area of your home. Of course, most homes diversify their flooring and, rightfully so. Tile and carpet are also valuable flooring materials with distinctive characteristics and benefits. Still, the versatility and rewards of laminate flooring in Portland is making this material a near-must for many homeowners.

Portland Laminate Flooring v. Hardwood Flooring
As most homeowners know, laminate flooring was developed as a low-cost, hassle-free alternative to hardwood flooring. This allowed for laminate flooring to eat into and occupy a predetermined niche of the residential flooring market. What many homeowners don't realize is that while early forms of laminate flooring suffered from lower scratch and impact resistance, newer lines of laminate flooring arguably outperform hardwood flooring. In Portland, laminate flooring is particularly adept at dealing with higher moisture levels common to the Pacific Northwest. While hardwood flooring can bow and warp, laminate flooring easily expands and contracts without damage. This also means your laminate flooring will need considerably less maintenance that hardwood flooring, which must be periodically resealed to protect it. At the same time, laminate flooring is remarkably easier to repair. Purchase spare planks when you first install your floor and repairs can be even easier that cutting and plugging a spare patch of carpeting.

Portland Laminate Flooring Installation
The ease of installation, in general, is one of the most attractive elements of laminate flooring. Different laminate flooring manufacturers have slightly easier or more difficult flooring products to install, just as they have slightly different costs, performance standards, and warranties. If you plan to install your own laminate flooring, you might look for a DIY kit. Easy installation (a relative term) is beneficial even if you plan on hiring a professional. The cost of labor will be dramatically reduces given that most laminate flooring can be professionally installed in a single day and sometimes in a single afternoon. Hardwood flooring installation can take several days to a week or more and requires more highly-specialized methods. Keep in mind, too, that you will still need some basic carpentry/handyman-type skills for even the easiest laminate flooring installation.

Cost of Portland Laminate Flooring
The average cost of new laminate flooring is about $4,000, although this number may mean little to your specific project. Recently, we've seen Portland laminate flooring projects of $3,000 and $5,000, and it's not unheard for projects to go as low as $750 or as much as $12,000 for uncommonly small or large floors. At the same time, the only way to truly know how much your project may cost is to talk to a Portland laminate flooring contractor, although we can tell you that, on average, hardwood flooring costs about 20 -25 percent more than laminate.

Finding a Contractor for Laminate Flooring in Portland, OR
If you're leaning against taking on your own laminate flooring installation, it's a good idea to go ahead and look for contractors well in advance of the project. Rather than purchasing your laminate flooring and soliciting estimates for installation almost as an afterthought, finding a quality Portland laminate flooring contractor can be an invaluable asset to the project as a whole. Our contractors are put through a rigorous ten-step screening process, but more than being reliable, they can offer great advice as you move forward during the planning process. They can give you recommendations and relative pros and cons for different flooring manufacturers, as well as answer any other questions you may have about laminate flooring. Of course, they will also be able to deliver a superb laminate flooring installation for a reasonable price. Our online ratings and reviews section provides a powerful motivator for our contractors to exceed your expectations.

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