Tried the cheap laminate flooring vs the mid-range stuff side by side in my hallway

I redid a 12 foot hallway in my 1920s bungalow in Portland. Tried a $0.79 per square foot laminate on one half and a $1.89 per square foot from the same brand on the other. The cheap stuff started chipping at the edges after 2 months from just normal foot traffic. The mid-range still looks brand new 8 months later. Anyone else find that the price jump between the bottom tier and the next one up is totally worth it for flooring?

3 comments

3 Comments

noah_webb20d agoMost Upvoted

My cheap laminate started peeling like a sunburned tourist, guess I got what I paid for.

skyler_adams19d ago

That chipping on the cheap stuff is exactly what happened to mine. Definitely made me swear off the bottom tier laminate for good.

casey39319d ago

That "peeling like a sunburned tourist" line is painfully accurate. My buddy Tom did the same thing with some bargain laminate in his den. He picked up a pallet for like fifty cents a foot from some clearance rack. Within a year the top layer started curling up at the seams. He has a golden retriever and the dog's nails would catch on the edges and peel it back even more. He ended up ripping it all out after a vacuum cleaner snagged a big chunk and tore a three-foot strip clean off. Now he's got the mid-tier stuff in there and it's been fine for two years.