Laminate Flooring That Holds Up in Greater St. Louis Homes

The laminate that gave the category a bad name in the early 2000s was thin, hollow-sounding and obviously printed. What we sell now is a different product. High-resolution wear layers, beveled edges, embossing that follows the grain of the printed board, and cores that shrug off a tipped dog bowl. From six feet away, in a furnished room, most people cannot tell a good AC4 laminate from a finished hardwood floor.

It is the right pick when you want a wood look on a budget that will not stretch to solid or engineered boards, or when the room is simply rough on floors: a family room, a hallway, a rental turnover, a kid's bedroom, a basement bonus room. Installed pricing in this market runs $4 to $8 a square foot with the old floor hauled away.

Laminate floats. It is not fastened to anything, so it will telegraph every hump and dip in the subfloor and it will peak at the seams if it has nowhere to expand. We check the subfloor with a long straightedge and level what needs leveling, roll a vapor barrier over any concrete, and hold a quarter-inch gap at every wall, pipe and door casing before the trim goes back on.

Humidity here swings hard between a July dew point in the seventies and a dry January furnace, and a floating floor moves with it. Boards sit in the room for two days before we start so they arrive at the house's own moisture level. Then the end joints get staggered properly for strength and color-matched transitions go in at every doorway. Homeowners across Chesterfield and west county get that same routine on every job.