Garage Conversion to Playroom – Follow Up

Follow-Up: Lev and I have gone into depth about this project. Lev mentioned he has had a flooding issue in the past and was a bit worried about the stale or damp smell that could occur with carpet.
Q: Thank you for your excellent guidance. Based on what you indicated, we will give up on the ramp idea. We are inclined to have a small step down. We are attaching some photos for you to peruse. The current step is about 3 1/2″. Since we are putting in a heat element under whatever floor we choose, plus the new floor in the garage, we will eat up about another inch in the garage. So the “stair” would only be about 2 1/2″.
1) An alternative is just to build the floor up to the current level of the tile recreational room, but since our ceiling is only 7′ 4″, we really don’t want to give up any more space. What do you suggest? Should we go with the 2 1/2″ inch step down?
2) We are not quite sure where the step should be, on the current threshold, or further into the garage to tie both rooms together.
3) Back to the question of what material to use in the garage. If we want both rooms to tie together well, we would use the same tile as the rec room, which is a fine Italian tile. We like the tile in the rec room, but it is so hard on the knees for the kids. On the plus side, it is extremely durable and wears well with the kids and the dog. We’ve had one minor flood and it was extremely easy to clean up. It doesn’t hold any moisture, so the stale smell that we used to have is gone. And we can put a rug over it. On the other hand, we like the wood look much better. The room would have a much different feel to it, which is why we are looking into the engineered wood.
4) If we went with the engineered wood, the transition between the tile and the wood would be tricky because of the step down. How do we tie both of the rooms together with different flooring?
5) Because it is the lower level, we are thinking of keep a very slight slant to the floor, not as severe as it currently is with the garage, but just about 1/4 – 1/2″ over the entire floor in the garage just in case we did have a flood. What do you think?
Any suggestions you may have would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
–Lev
Here you can see a bit more of Lev’s garage.

Lev also followed up to mention that they intend to remove about 2ft of the wall to the left of the entry way when looking from the garage to the basement, similar to the view in the photo above.
A: After looking at your tile and tossing a few ideas around I have a few suggestions. First, I think the step down will be fine as it adds some design element you can work with.
If your worried about another flood of some form, I would avoid a wood floor. Wood and water do NOT mix. You could look into a vinyl tile with wood appearance, such as Congoleum’s Forum Plank.
If it is very unlikely you will encounter water issues again or you have resolved the issue in your home that caused this previous flood, give cork a serious look. I mentioned that cork is an insulator and to investigate the R value of your heating system, but after seeing your tile I think you would have great success using a pattern similar to the Labrador pattern from Westhollow.
I had a short conversation with Steve while he was making his rounds for the day and he offered up this great bit of info. Cork flooring causes a 3 – 5% reduction in heat generated by a radiant heat system. He also mentioned you will see more if you use cork underlayment, but if you use 3mm underlayment you would still have plenty of success with this combo. When it comes to a wood floor and comfort, Cork really is the best stuff out there hands down. Cork also is naturally moisture resistant (hence why its used for bottle stoppers), so small spills won’t be a big worry as long as they are cleaned up in a timely manner.
If you want wood, I would look into a good click together floor like the ones made by Philharmoniker. Also, try to avoid a softer species like American Cherry or Black Walnut. Find something that is at a very minimum, equal in hardness as White Oak otherwise you could run into issues where your children playing will cause denting in the floor.
In regards to the slant, you will always want a floor to be flat. However, if you have a 1/4” slant across the entirety of the garage and the floor is even along this slant, meaning no variation side to side, you should be fine with a floating floor over a good underlayment. I would avoid using a 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 underlayment if you intend to have the slight slant to your floor.
After you widen the entryway, I would actually suggest installing a bit more tile. You could tile the step, then install cork or the floor of your choice up to the step and this should give you a good look, as the step will flow into the basement and the garage will have its own appearance, but still flow well. With the engineered you can do this approach as well or you can use the wood to cover the stair and install a t-mold that matches the floor to transition to the tile. This is a very common approach and works well.