LESLIE: Brian in New York needs some help with a flooring choice. What can we do for you?
BRIAN: Hi, thanks for taking my call.
LESLIE: Our pleasure.
BRIAN: I own an old house in Brooklyn. It’s a row house, two-family. It was my grandfather’s house. Now what happened was the tenant finally moved out after, I guess, 20-something years and there was an old rug on it. When I took the rug up, the floor underneath is pretty shot. So I’m looking to put in a hardwood floor and there’s so many new choices now between solid all the way to laminate. And I was just thinking what is the most durable, easy – I’m going to do it myself. It’s about 600 square feet so I know the prices are very different. I just want to get …
TOM: Brian, are you going to rent this or are you going to live in the house?
BRIAN: Oh, no, it’s a rental.
LESLIE: Laminate.
TOM: Alright – yeah. If it’s a rental, we’re going to recommend the most indestructible product out there, which is laminate floor. Now, laminate floor is not really wood; yet the laminate floor today, though, it looks so good it easily can be construed as wood.
BRIAN: Right.
TOM: We would recommend laminate floor because it’s very, very durable stuff. You want to buy a good quality-grade laminate. You absolutely can install it yourself. Most of it is click-together or lock-together. You can get patterns that look like old wooden floors. You can get patterns that look like tile. You know, whatever you want it’s out there.
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
TOM: But if it’s a rental property, I definitely would not use a natural material.
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Oh, good Lord no.
TOM: I would not use engineered. (clears throat) I wouldn’t use solid. I would definitely use laminate.
BRIAN: OK, great. Thanks a lot for your help.
TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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