Carpet or hardwood floors?

Question

We moved into our house several years ago and it's covered in an ugly forest green carpet. Our kitchen however has a nice wood laminate floor. Our carpet is nasty and needs to be replaced, but I can't decide if I should get new carpet or if I should use the same floor that is in our kitchen, for our entire house.

I love the way carpet looks and feels, but I'm thinking of something that will last for quite some time. I have 3 kids and 3 dogs and I worry that carpet will get nasty pretty quickly, but I am also concerned that hardwood floors are going to need daily cleaning, which I don't have time for.

We don't have a lot of money and have been saving up for this, so I really want to make sure I will be happy with what we choose.

Have any of you ever replaced capret with hardwood floors? Would you make the same decision? Any regrets?

Answer 1

i suggest you to put laminate floors on ground floor and carpets in others, like in bedrooms etc.

Answer 2

All the floors in our home are hardwood, but carpeted over befor we bought the house. A few years back, I took the carpet up in the living room for the beautiful hardwood floors. I HATE IT! I feel like I am a slave to them. I sweep and swiffer everyday. I will say this...When I ripped up the carpet, all the dirt and old carpet fresh was underneath. I was so grossed out knowing we would lay on the carpet and breath all that dust in. I do want to get carptet again, I would just try to invest in a very good vacuum, and will never use carpet fresh again.

Answer 3

I would do hardwood in heavy traffic areas and carpet in areas where a person might be sitting around and like it a little cozier. For instance, we have hardwood placed in our house so that we can go from the front of the house to the back of the house without stepping on carpet.
One room where I wish we had hardwood rather than carpet is our home office. The whole family LIVES in there and the carpets are disgusting! If I ever change it, I won't put carpet in there again.
Another good carpet option with a family is Berber.

Answer 4

I can only give you a opinion. My brother and I both do floor work. He does carpet and tile where I do wood. We both do our jobs with pride. Now on a personal note we both have hardwood floors in our homes. He owns a 4000 square foot home and every floor is wood.My home is a 2 story with a basement. It is 11000 square foot. My basement is done in oak flooring and oak lumber. I built my home 20 years ago and have never touched the floors since.His house is 25 years old and the floors look great still.Both our wives use a swiffer sweeper to clean the floors.

Answer 5

Owner of 90 yr old house with hardwood floors and a cat. Love my floors. They are alittle extra work, but worth it in the end. Spills clean up easier and the worse thing I have to do is run the swiffer over them weekly to catch the dust bunnies.

Answer 6

I would NEVER put carpet in a house again. In every house we've bought, we've pulled up the carpet and put in hardwood. Even in very nice houses in very nice neighborhoods - what we've found underneath the carpet is DISGUSTING!!! Put down hardwood and then add a throw rug for "warmth".

Answer 7

Put in some decent hardwood or hardwood tile/parquet. In the areas where you want a little softness and warmth, put down some area rugs or runners. Hardwood floors are easier to keep clean, and if your area rugs get too worn/stained, you can easily replace them.

Answer 8

Carpet is nice and cozy and it adds to the acoustic of the room. Hard wood floor require lots of maintenance to keep it looking nice. The sound quality in the room is off and then there is that cold floor to walk on in winter time.

Go with carpet. Depending on what you want it is not that expensive and all you have to do is vacuum it and you are done.

Hope that helps.

Answer 9

Hardwood floors are expensive to have installed, but with kids and pets hardwood floors clean up easily, plus hardwood floors are much much healthier to have. Good luck...

Answer 10

hardwood, laminate, or nice tile beats the hell out of carpet every day.

the houses i grew up in always had carpet in them, so at first i hated the hardwood floors of my house in college. after 6 months in the place (with my ONE dog, not your multitudes!), i'd never go back to a carpeted house EVER. even the best trained pets have an occasional "accident" and not having to try to soak that up out of carpet pad is wonderful. not having to attempt to vacuum the dog hair out of the carpet twice weekly (at least) is also heaven. you know those kiddos are going to spill juice boxes and koolaid all over the place...never mind the adults' red wine drops on the floor, and it's way nice to just wipe that up instead of worrying about bleaching part of the carpet with a cleaner.

soft area rugs can be put wherever you'd like a more cozy feel, and have the added benefit of being a)cheaper to wash than attempts to steam-clean the whole room in case of damage and b)easily replaceable if you want to change the whole feel of the room.

i had hardwood floors in my last 2 houses and loved them. their natural irregularities actually helped hide imperfections in my cleaning technique (i'm seriously not mopping this whole place twice weekly. no way). they are warm (wood is thermo-neutral, just like carpet), easy to clean (light sweeping weekly, mopping as needed), and don't hold in dust/dirt like carpet padding - meaning less allergies for your family. drawback: high traffic areas especially will need to be refinished every 5 to 10 years as the varnish is worn through.

i have beautiful laminate flooring in my current house and love that too. all of the pros of hardwood, and so far, it seems to be more durable in those high traffic areas (i.e., the wheels on my computer chair have not gouged out any of it at all), but i have no personal experience on the long-term for this pergo-type stuff. drawback: the perfect reglarity of the shine/texture means that smears on the floor much more noticeable than with hardwood.

my mother's house is completely done in tile. can be pricey to lay down, but lasts forever (unless of course you drop cement blocks or heavy crock-pots on it, but repair includes replacing a small area of tile, not the whole room, so just keep a few boxes of the original in the basement forever and ever). many finishes are very forgiving to those of us that despise daily floor maintenance. tile is cold, so you'll want more area rugs in living areas, but phenomenally durable, and won't need refinishing.

leave stairs carpeted (the berber that another person mentioned is ideal for this, it's pretty tough stuff), so you don't slip on them, but scrap the nasty stuff everywhere else in the house!