Ooh, I am delighted to have found this board!

Okay, DH and I are finally getting to renovate our first floor. Presently we have hardwood, some green tile in the entry and some gray tile in the kitchen. The hardwood covers more than half of the floor right now.

We took out walls and now we want mostly all the same type of floor downstairs. I have done no cost comparisons at this point, but I have a question.

Do you think it would cost less to rip out the tile, install unfinished hardwood in its place and then refinish all the hardwood to match? OR rip out all the floor (1400 sf or so) and install all tile?

Even before you answer that question, I'm pretty sure I want the wood. Our stairs are wood and three bedrooms upstairs are wood as well.

My concern is being able to repair and fill in the wood floor where we took out walls and also to make the floor all one level. Right now, the kitchen tile is laid on an extra thickness of plywood and is higher than the wood presently adjoining it. We could take out the tile and the first layer of plywood, but I think the original plywood may be yucky.

I guess I also need to know a rough estimate of finishing and refinishing on a cost/sf basis.

I'm tired and normally I write much more coherently.

Thanks for input.

Kara

If you hire someone to do the work, I can assure you it will be less money to patch and add on to your existing wood floors than tearing all the floors out and replacing them with tile. ALWAYS, cost depends on labor and materials. Cheap tile=less cost. Same for wood. You need to find out IF your floors can be matched and patched and added to. They probably can. I do not know the labor costs in Florida. The place to start is begin looking for EXPERIENCED and LICENSED HARDWOOD flooring contractors in your area with good referals. Call some to come over to bid on your project. Tell them what you would like to do and then they will tell you if they think it can be done. Then ask for a "bid" or estimate on the work. Then when you've gotten at least three bids from three different contractors, you're ready to figure out a budget of what you can afford to do. You can also call some tile contractors to bid the floors as well but I am quite certain the tile will be more.