Golden Choice Flooring in Mississauga and Barrie

Laminate is built in layers: a fibreboard core, a printed decorative layer that carries the wood look, and a clear wear layer on top that takes the traffic. Golden Choice makes it in a regular and a water resistant form, and Squarefoot Flooring carries three collections across the two.

Regular laminate: the 1070's collection

The 1070's is a regular laminate, a wood look floating floor for dry living spaces: living rooms, bedrooms, hallways, dining rooms. Regular laminate has a fibreboard core, which is what keeps the cost below engineered wood while still giving a convincing wood look and a hard wearing surface. Because that core is fibreboard, it belongs in dry rooms and away from standing water.

Water resistant laminate: the 1060's and 1080's collections

The 1060's and 1080's are water resistant laminates, built to hold up to water far better than a regular fibreboard core. This is the line for a kitchen, an entry, or a busier household where spills happen, and it keeps the laminate look and the easy click install while adding real protection against moisture. The two collections give you a choice of look within the water resistant tier.

We confirm the thickness, the AC traffic rating and the exact warranty of each collection off the current product rather than printing numbers here that could go stale. The AC rating tells you how much traffic a laminate is built for, and it is worth getting exactly right for your room, so we read it to you off the box.

Decision: dry living space, the 1070's regular laminate. A kitchen or a moisture prone room that still wants the laminate look, the 1060's or 1080's water resistant laminate. Compare the categories in regular laminate and water resistant laminate.

Worth saying plainly, because it puts each floor in the right room. Regular laminate, the 1070's, handles a spill you wipe up but not standing water, a leaking dishwasher or a wet basement, because its fibreboard core will swell if water soaks in. Water resistant laminate, the 1060's and 1080's, takes far more, a spill that sits a while, the traffic of a wet entry, but water resistant still is not the same as the fully waterproof rigid core of an Evolution vinyl.

So for a genuinely wet room, a full bathroom, a laundry, a basement over concrete, the right material is not laminate at all, it is the Golden Choice Evolution vinyl below, or a rigid core plank from our wider range. We will tell you which, rather than sell you a floor that fails in the wrong room.

Decision: dry rooms, regular laminate. Damp prone rooms that still want a laminate, water resistant laminate. Genuinely wet rooms and basements, step to Evolution vinyl. See the waterproof options in vinyl plank.

Golden Choice builds more than the laminate we stock. If your project needs something the laminate cannot do, these are the other materials the brand makes, and where each earns its place. Ask us about bringing them in.

• Evolution vinyl, underlay attached. A rigid stone polymer core plank with a pad already bonded to the back, so there is no separate underlay to lay. Golden Choice builds it in a 5.5mm version, a 4mm core with a 1.5mm pad, and a 6.5mm version, a 5mm core with a 1.5mm pad. It is genuinely waterproof and stable over concrete, which makes it the right floor for a basement, a laundry room or a full bathroom.
• Evolution vinyl, no pad attached. The same rigid core without the attached pad, for jobs that call for a separate acoustic underlay underneath, common in a condo with a sound rating to meet before the board approves the floor.
• Engineered hardwood. Real wood over a stable core, for a floor where you want the genuine article rather than a printed look, and where the engineered build lets it go over concrete and in spots solid wood cannot.
• Trims, mouldings and underlays. The casings, doorstops, reducers and underlays that finish any of the above properly, so a floor meets a wall, a door and the next room the way it should.

Decision: the laminate is the Golden Choice floor for a dry or damp prone living space. Genuinely wet room, the Evolution vinyl. Real wood, the engineered. Tell us the room and we will point you to the right one, including when it is not a Golden Choice product at all.

• Dry living space, main floors, bedrooms, hallways. The 1070's regular laminate.
• Kitchens and moisture prone rooms that want a laminate look. The 1060's or 1080's water resistant laminate.
• Basements, laundry rooms, full bathrooms, over concrete. The Evolution vinyl, pad attached for speed or bare for a condo sound spec.
• A room that wants real wood. The engineered hardwood.

And where none of these fit, we say so. For solid hardwood you refinish over decades, that is a different floor for a different budget. Laminate and vinyl are wear surfaces. When the wear layer goes you replace the floor, you do not refinish it.

Laminate and rigid-core both look simple to lay, which is exactly why so much of it is laid badly. A floating floor needs an expansion gap around the whole perimeter or it buckles when the seasons change. It needs a flat subfloor, or the boards flex and the joints wear. It needs the right underlay under it for sound and for moisture. Skip any of those and the floor fails, and none of it is the board's fault.

Squarefoot Flooring supplies and installs Golden Choice with our own people, full time employees who do residential and commercial work. Before the first board clicks in, our crew flattens and preps the subfloor, sets the expansion gap the product needs, and lays the correct underlay underneath. On an engineered wood job over concrete, the crew moisture tests the slab first. We are not booking a subcontractor and hoping the details come out right.

We supply and install Golden Choice from our Mississauga showroom across Toronto, Mississauga, Etobicoke, Brampton, Port Credit, Erin Mills, Streetsville, Meadowvale and Cooksville, and from our Barrie showroom across Barrie, Innisfil, Angus, Orillia, Collingwood, Midland and Simcoe County. Installation across the Greater Toronto Area books about two weeks out. Barrie and cottage country jobs from May through September fill eight to twelve weeks ahead, so a summer floor is best booked in spring.

See how a laminate installation runs with us, and look at the flooring underlayments the floor needs underneath. Both are handled in house.

The Golden Choice laminates come in a range of wood tone colours. Colour reads differently under your own light than under showroom lighting, so take a sample home and set it in the actual room, at the hour you are usually in it. A tone that looks warm in the store can read grey against a north facing window, and the only way to know is to see it in place.

If you are matching or extending an existing Golden Choice floor, bring a spare board or a clear photo of the box label with the collection number on it, the 1060's, 1070's or 1080's. That identifies the exact colour and product line far more reliably than a name, since colours and batches update over time and two runs can differ slightly in shade.

The Golden Choice laminate collections are on display at both Squarefoot Flooring showrooms, and we can walk you through the wider Golden Choice range and bring in the Evolution vinyl or engineered wood to suit your project. Both showrooms are where you see it, choose it and book the install. Bring your room measurements, your subfloor type, and whether the room is above or below grade.

Mississauga. 700 Dundas St E, Unit 3-4, L4Y 3Y5. Call 905-277-2227. Monday to Friday 9 to 6, Saturday 10 to 5, closed Sunday.

Barrie. 112 Saunders Rd, Units 1-4, L4N 9A8. Call 705-726-2272. Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9 to 6, Tuesday and Thursday 9 to 5, Saturday 10 to 5, closed Sunday.

Bring a floor plan and leave with a spec you can trust and a crew that answers to us. Book a showroom visit, or call and we will tell you which Golden Choice floor suits your room, including when it is not a Golden Choice floor at all.