A lot of our calls from south Durham come from people in houses that are only a few years old. They bought in one of the newer subdivisions off Fayetteville Road, around Southpoint, or out along NC 55 toward RTP. Nothing is wrong with their floors. They’re just the floors the builder picked to hit a price: carpet upstairs and on the stairs, a thin vinyl plank or laminate downstairs, and sheet vinyl or basic tile in the bathrooms and laundry room. Now the owners want something better, and most of them don’t want to redo the whole house at once.
So the question we hear is which builder-grade floors to replace first. Our usual answer is the stairs, then the main living area, then the bathrooms whenever you remodel them, with the bedrooms last. Your house may call for a different order, and a couple of things about new construction are worth knowing before you tear anything out.
What Builder-Grade Usually Means In A Newer Durham House
Builders pick floors that look fine at the closing walkthrough and keep the sale price down, and they buy them in volume. In the newer houses we see around south Durham, that usually means:
- Carpet over a thin pad in the bedrooms, the upstairs hall, and on the stairs.
- Vinyl plank or laminate on the first floor, often from a line with a thin wear layer that scratches and dents more easily than the better ones.
- Sheet vinyl or small ceramic tile in the bathrooms and laundry room.
Most of these houses also sit on a concrete slab. The National Association of Home Builders’ analysis of Census data found that 85.7 percent of new single-family homes in the South Atlantic states, which include North Carolina, were built on slabs in 2024. That changes what can go on your first floor, and we’ll come back to it below.
First: The Stairs
If you only do one thing, do the stairs. Stair carpet takes more abuse than any other carpet in the house, since every trip up and down lands on the same front edge of each step, and the staircase is usually one of the first things people see when they walk in. Builder stair carpet tends to look matted and worn at the edges long before the bedroom carpet does.
The upgrade most people pick is hardwood treads with painted risers. What you have to plan for is what the stairs connect to. The treads should match, or deliberately contrast with, the floor at the bottom and the landing at the top. So decide what those floors will eventually be before you order treads, even if you’re not replacing them this year. Our guide to stair treads, transitions, and thresholds walks through the options.
Second: The Main Living Area
The kitchen, family room, and front hall get the most traffic, and they’re where builder vinyl plank and laminate show chair scratches, dropped-pan dents, and dog-claw marks first. They’re also where a better floor changes how the whole house feels.
Since the first floor is almost always on a slab, your choices look a little different than they would in an older house over a crawlspace:
- Engineered hardwood is how you get real wood over concrete. Our post on installing hardwood over a slab in Durham’s newer subdivisions explains the moisture testing that has to happen first and why we don’t skip it.
- A better grade of luxury vinyl plank, with a thicker wear layer, stands up to kids, dogs, and spills. It’s the simplest of the three to put over a slab, as long as the slab is flat.
- Laminate looks closer to real wood than most vinyl and resists scratches well, but it’s less forgiving of water. Our post comparing laminate and LVP for a Durham home goes through the tradeoffs.
Builders often switch materials at the kitchen or the front hall, so you can end up with three different floors and a row of transition strips right inside the front door. When you replace it, run one floor through the whole connected area if you can. The space looks bigger, and you get rid of the trip edges. If a kitchen remodel is on the horizon, read our post on whether cabinets or floors go in first before you schedule either one.
Third: Bathrooms And The Laundry Room, When You Remodel
Builder sheet vinyl and small tile in bathrooms usually hold up fine. The reason to wait on them is practical. Doing a bathroom floor right means pulling the toilet and often the vanity, and if you’re going to replace the vanity or the tub surround in a few years anyway, you’d pay to pull them twice. Do the bathroom floors with the bathroom remodel. Our post on tile versus LVP in a bathroom covers which floor works where.
The exception is an upstairs laundry room. A washer leak on the second floor ends up in the ceiling below, and not every builder puts a drain pan under the washer. If the sheet vinyl in your laundry room is lifting at the edges or has gaps along the walls, move it up the list and add a pan when the new floor goes in.
Last: The Bedrooms
Bedroom carpet gets the least traffic in the house, so it lasts the longest. Unless someone in the family has allergies, a pet is wrecking it, or you simply can’t stand it, the bedrooms can wait until the end.
When that carpet does come up, use the chance to fix squeaks. Framing lumber in a new house dries and shrinks over the first few years, and that’s when a lot of squeaks show up. A bare subfloor is the easiest time to screw it down tight. Our post on fixing a squeaky subfloor upstairs covers how we handle it before the new floor goes in.
What We’d Leave Alone
Not every builder floor needs to go. Plain tile with no cracks and no hollow-sounding spots can usually stay. If it just looks dingy, a deep clean may be all it needs, and our post on cleaning tile and grout in Durham’s hard water shows how. Carpet in a guest room or a closet nobody walks in can stay too.
If you’re upgrading because you plan to sell soon, slow down. When builder floors are in decent shape, buyers in newer subdivisions mostly don’t pay extra for upgraded ones. We went into that in our post on whether new floors pay off when you sell.
Timing: The First Year And Your Builder Warranty
If your house is less than a couple of years old, read your builder’s warranty before you replace anything. Many builders cover workmanship items like floor coverings for the first year and schedule a walkthrough near the end of it. If the builder’s carpet is already coming loose at the seams, or the vinyl plank has gaps or a soft spot, get that fixed under warranty first. Once their floor is gone, so is their responsibility for it.
New houses also dry out over their first year or so. The framing and drywall give up moisture, and the slab keeps drying long after the house is closed in. A wood floor installed during that stretch can move more than one installed later, which is why we take moisture readings on every job and let the wood acclimate before it goes down. Our post on hardwood acclimation in the Triangle explains how long that takes here.
If you haven’t closed yet and you’re still picking finishes at the builder’s design center, get a quote from an independent installer for the same upgrade before you sign. Sometimes the builder’s price is fair and sometimes it isn’t, and comparing is the only way to know. If you’d rather wait, the work can always happen after closing.
Doing It In Phases Without A Patchwork Look
Most people spread this out over a few years, which is fine if you plan for it:
- Decide on the finished plan for the whole house first, even if you’re only paying for part of it now. Then every phase fits the one after it.
- Buy extra. Flooring lines get discontinued, and next year’s production run of the same product may not match this year’s exactly. A few spare boxes in the garage cover repairs and help the next phase match.
- End each phase at a doorway, not in the middle of an open room.
- Watch the heights. Engineered hardwood, laminate, and vinyl plank aren’t the same thickness, so wherever two floors meet, plan the transition before either one goes in.
What It Costs
Pulling up builder carpet and floating vinyl plank is the easy part. Tile removal is the slow, dusty part, and it shows up in the price. For real numbers, see our 2026 guide to hardwood installation costs in Durham. Every quote we write lists removal, prep, and installation line by line, so you can price the stairs, the main floor, and the bedrooms separately and decide what to do now and what to save for later.
Getting A Quote In South Durham
We’re a flooring company based in South Durham, and our shop on Obie Dr is close to the newer neighborhoods off Fayetteville Road and around Southpoint. On a free in-home estimate I’ll walk the house with you, check the slab and subfloor, and help you put the rooms in order. You get a written, fixed quote by email, usually within a day or two.
Vilchis Hardwood Floors
237 Obie Dr, Durham, NC 27713
(919) 794-1116
[email protected]
Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Serving Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Apex, Morrisville, Garner, and Wake Forest.
Request a free in-home estimate
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Floor Should I Replace First If I Can Only Afford One?
The stairs, or the main living area if your stairs aren’t carpeted. Those take the most wear, and they’re the floors you look at every day.
Should I Replace Builder-Grade Floors Before Selling?
Usually not, if they’re in decent shape. Repair anything that’s damaged, clean the rest, and put the money elsewhere. The resale post linked above explains why.
Can New Flooring Go Over Builder Vinyl Plank?
No. Floating floors aren’t meant to be stacked on other floating floors, and an extra layer raises the height at every doorway and appliance. The old plank comes up first. Tile is a different situation, and our post on installing laminate over tile or concrete explains when that can work.
Will Replacing The Floors Void My Builder Warranty?
In general it only ends coverage on the floors you replace, but warranty terms vary from builder to builder. Read your own documents, and settle any floor-related warranty claims before the old floors come out.
Mario Vilchis runs Vilchis Hardwood Floors out of 237 Obie Dr in Durham. He’s been installing and refinishing wood floors in the Triangle since 2009 and shows up to every estimate himself. Reach the shop at (919) 794-1116.
