Modern laminate has come a long way. Here's why homeowners across Raleigh and Myrtle Beach are making it their most requested flooring upgrade this season.
If your floors have been on your to-do list for a while, you’re not alone. A lot of homeowners in Raleigh and Myrtle Beach are in the same spot: tired of looking at worn carpet or dated flooring but unsure which direction to go. Hardwood feels expensive. Tile feels cold. And laminate? There’s a good chance you still picture the thin, hollow-sounding stuff from the 90s.
But modern laminate flooring is a different product entirely. And in 2026, it’s the option more homeowners across Raleigh and the coastal areas are choosing than any other. Here’s why that shift is happening, and what it might mean for your home.
In both Raleigh’s established neighborhoods and Myrtle Beach’s coastal communities, homeowners have high aesthetic standards. Flooring is one of the first things people see when they walk into a home, and it’s one of the first things that shows its age.
What’s driving the laminate trend isn’t a single factor. It’s a combination of better technology, smarter pricing, and a shift in what buyers actually want. The gray, cold-toned floors that dominated the last decade are giving way to warmer shades: honey oak, golden maple, chestnut; which feel inviting and current without trying too hard.
For Raleigh, where many homes were built in the 1990s through the early 2000s, the timing makes sense. A lot of original flooring is simply aging out, and homeowners are replacing it with something that looks better, performs better, and holds up to real life. In Myrtle Beach, the driver is different: vacation rental properties and second homes need flooring that can handle high turnover and coastal humidity without constant maintenance. Laminate delivers on both fronts.
The laminate flooring available today is not the same product your parents installed in their basement in 1998. The manufacturing has changed significantly, and the difference is visible the moment you put a plank in your hand.
Today’s laminate uses high-definition photographic layers that replicate the grain, texture, and even the subtle imperfections of real hardwood with a level of detail that’s genuinely hard to distinguish from the real thing. Wide plank options, some reaching eight inches or more, give rooms a more open, luxurious feel that narrow planks never could. And the surface texture isn’t flat anymore. It’s embossed, hand-scraped, or wire-brushed to match the visual underneath, so it doesn’t just look like wood, it feels like it underfoot.
Then there’s the structural improvement. Quality laminate today is measured by its AC rating: a standardized durability score that tells you exactly how much wear a floor can handle. For a busy household with kids, dogs, or heavy foot traffic through the main living areas, an AC3 or AC4 rated product is the baseline worth considering. It’s tested to handle thousands of footsteps daily without showing it.
One of the biggest shifts has been in moisture resistance. Waterproof laminate lines like Pergo WetProtect and AquaGuard, which carries a 30-hour water resistance rating, have opened up spaces that used to be off-limits for laminate entirely. Kitchens, mudrooms, and even some bathroom applications are now realistic options. That’s a meaningful change for homeowners who want a consistent look throughout their home without switching materials from room to room.
The underlayment has improved too. The right underlayment eliminates the hollow sound that gave older laminate its cheap reputation, while also providing sound absorption and a slight thermal cushion that makes the floor more comfortable to stand on for long periods. It’s one of those details that separates a good installation from a great one, and it’s the kind of thing a knowledgeable installer will address before a single plank goes down.
This is the question almost every homeowner asks at some point, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a sales pitch.
Hardwood is beautiful and it carries real resale cachet. But it’s also the most expensive option, it requires refinishing over time, and it doesn’t handle moisture or heavy pet traffic particularly well without ongoing care. In Raleigh’s humid subtropical climate, where summer humidity regularly climbs above 70%, solid hardwood can expand, contract, and cup in ways that create headaches for homeowners who didn’t account for it. Engineered hardwood handles those conditions better, but the cost is still significantly higher than laminate for comparable visual results. Myrtle Beach’s year-round coastal humidity presents similar challenges, making solid hardwood even more problematic for properties that aren’t climate-controlled consistently.
Luxury vinyl plank, or LVP, is the other product that comes up constantly in this comparison. It’s 100% waterproof, highly durable, and has its own strong following. The honest difference between LVP and high-quality laminate comes down to a few things: laminate tends to have a more realistic wood appearance at equivalent price points, it’s generally more scratch-resistant on the surface, and it holds up better under heavy furniture. LVP has the edge in true waterproof applications and is softer underfoot. Neither is universally better; the right answer depends on your specific rooms, your household, and your budget.
Laminate sits at a compelling middle point. It typically runs between three and thirteen dollars per square foot installed, which makes it one of the most accessible hard-surface flooring options available without compromising on appearance. Real estate experts consistently rank it among the top choices for increasing home value: behind natural hardwood and stone, but ahead of most other options. In competitive markets like Raleigh and Myrtle Beach where listing photos drive buyer interest before a single showing, updated laminate flooring is a visible, tangible upgrade that translates directly into perception of value.
For families with pets, kids, or homes that see a lot of daily activity, laminate’s scratch resistance and easy maintenance profile make it a practical choice that doesn’t require you to be precious about your floors. You can clean it with a damp mop, it doesn’t trap allergens the way carpet does, and a quality product with proper installation will hold up for fifteen to twenty-five years without refinishing.
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Choosing the right product is only half the equation. How it gets installed determines whether that floor looks and performs the way it should five years from now, or whether it starts buckling, squeaking, or separating at the seams.
This is where the difference between a knowledgeable local installer and a big-box store crew becomes very real. The steps that get skipped in a rushed installation are exactly the ones that cause problems later, and most homeowners don’t find out until the damage is already done. A proper installation starts well before the first plank goes down, and it follows a sequence that experienced installers don’t shortcut.
Before any laminate flooring gets installed, the subfloor has to be ready. That means it needs to be clean, level, and dry. Even minor dips or high spots, anything beyond about three-sixteenths of an inch over ten feet, can cause planks to flex, click joints to stress, and eventually fail.
Moisture testing matters too, especially in climates like Raleigh’s where ground moisture and seasonal humidity are real factors in crawl space homes and slab construction alike. In Myrtle Beach, moisture testing is non-negotiable: the combination of coastal humidity, proximity to water, and seasonal fluctuations makes it the single most critical step before installation begins.
After the subfloor is confirmed ready, the laminate itself needs time to acclimate. That typically means leaving the planks in the room where they’ll be installed for 48 to 72 hours before installation begins. Laminate expands and contracts with temperature and humidity changes. If it goes down before it’s adjusted to the room’s conditions, you can end up with gaps in winter and buckling in summer. We build this into the timeline without being asked.
Underlayment selection is another step where the quality of the installation either comes together or falls short. The right underlayment provides a moisture barrier between the subfloor and the laminate, absorbs sound so the floor doesn’t echo underfoot, and adds a layer of thermal insulation that makes the surface more comfortable. Some premium laminate products come with underlayment pre-attached, but in many cases it’s a separate decision that requires matching the product to the subfloor type and the room’s conditions.
Expansion gaps, the small spaces left at walls, doorways, and transitions, are what allow the floor to move naturally with seasonal changes without pressing against fixed surfaces and warping. They get covered by baseboards and transition strips, so they’re invisible once the job is done. But if they’re skipped or undersized, the floor has nowhere to go when it expands, and it will find its own way, usually by buckling in the middle of the room.
These aren’t complicated steps. They’re just the steps that get skipped when someone is moving fast or cutting corners, and they’re the reason why two identical laminate products can look completely different five years after installation depending on who puts them in.
A few questions come up consistently when homeowners are working through this decision, and they’re worth addressing directly.
One of the most common is if laminate is a good fit for homes with pets. The short answer is yes, with the right product. A surface-rated AC3 or higher laminate handles scratching from dogs significantly better than hardwood, which shows claw marks relatively quickly. The key is pairing that with a waterproof or water-resistant product for areas where accidents are more likely, and making sure the finish has a matte or low-gloss surface that doesn’t show every paw print.
Another question that comes up often, particularly from homeowners in Raleigh’s established neighborhoods, is if laminate will hurt resale value. It won’t, and in many cases, replacing worn carpet or outdated vinyl with quality laminate actively improves it. Buyers in the Raleigh market respond to updated, move-in-ready homes, and fresh floors photograph well and show well. The homes that sit on the market tend to be the ones where the floors look tired.
For homeowners along the Grand Strand in Myrtle Beach, the questions tend to be a little different. Coastal humidity is more pronounced year-round, and for vacation rental properties or second homes, the priority shifts toward durability and low maintenance over everything else. Waterproof laminate is the right starting point for ground-floor installations in coastal homes, and AC4-rated products are worth the modest additional cost in rental properties where foot traffic is high and the floor doesn’t get the same careful treatment it would in an owner-occupied home. The Myrtle Beach market also has a strong retiree and snowbird segment, homeowners who want floors that look beautiful without requiring any special care between visits. Laminate’s clean-with-a-mop maintenance profile fits that lifestyle well.
One more question worth addressing: how long does installation actually take? For most standard residential projects, a full floor replacement runs one to three days depending on square footage and subfloor condition. We deliver product quickly after ordering and typically schedule installation within days, not the weeks-long wait that’s become frustratingly common with other providers in this market.
Modern laminate flooring has earned its place as one of the most requested upgrades for homeowners in Raleigh and Myrtle Beach, not because it’s the cheapest option, but because it delivers on the things homeowners actually care about: appearance, durability, low maintenance, and real value over time.
The product has changed. The installation standards matter. And the difference between a floor that holds up beautifully for two decades and one that starts showing problems in year three usually comes down to who you work with and how seriously they take the details.
We’ve been helping homeowners across Raleigh and Myrtle Beach make this call for over 30 years. Reach out and schedule your in-home estimate, it’s the easiest first step, and it costs you nothing to find out exactly what your floors could look like.
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