I am so torn about flooring. Let me give you my thoughts...
- I go barefoot all the time so I prefer to walk on carpet.
- Hardwood floors look nice.
- It just seems "wrong" to cover up nice hardwood floors.
- I don't really want carpet in the dining room since I have kids.
- I don't know if I would want to leave the dining room bare if we have wood floors - and does it really make sense to put a rug on the floor when I don't want carpet.
- It would take longer to completely refinish the floors if they're wood and would probably be a similar cost to carpet.
- We have three rooms that will need a different flooring anyway - the carport addition, the back addition, the kitchen.
- Hardwood floors would increase the value of the house (in theory) whenever we decide to sell it...which we expect to be a good bit down the road.
- We don't even know yet how the hardwoods look.
- The one room that has been uncovered for a while looks pretty nice.
- The one room that has recently been uncovered and hasn't had much done looks like it could be nice with very little work.
- If we go with wood, I have to find and pick out rugs (this could be a pro or a con).
Ok. I think that's all my thoughts for the moment. If you have any thoughts or feedback for me, please let me know. I need help deciding this one. As a side note, I haven't really been able to go spend time at the house just looking around and pondering the issue. In addition, we don't know how the floors will look once the carpet is pulled up off of them. I'm just guessing based on the ones that are uncovered that they will look decent. I also don't have any real knowledge about hardwood floors, so I don't know how much it would take to get them looking nice and finished properly.
6 comments:
Our house has hardwoods in all of the living areas. The bedrooms are the only places that are carpeted.
Dining Room: I love the look of the hardwoods in the dining room. We eat there when we have guests, so it's the room that Lydia eats in the most. I much prefer cleaning her food off of those floors than off of carpet. We have not put a rug down under the table.
Kitchen/Eat-in Kitchen: Although I like the way the hardwoods look in the kitchen, the trickiness of mopping the hardwoods prevents me from doing it as often as I like/should.
Living Room: Love the hardwoods in the living area. This is the only area for which we have purchased a rug. I love my rug! Of course, now Josh tells me that we should move the rug occasionally or otherwise our flooring underneath the rug will fade differently than the rest of the room.
To Recap: I love hardwoods in our living areas. I'm not so sure that I would love hardwoods in the bedroom. The only challenge, which I am willing to take on, is cleaning them properly and frequently enough. I think that I would suggest purchasing a vacuum that works well on hardwood flooring. I have to sweep my floors with two different brooms to get them clean, and mopping is a different boat altogether. As far as walking on hardwood floors, it's great!
KEEP THE HARDWOOD FLOORS!!!! That's my vote.
We had a choice when building the house to go hardwood or not. We ended up, for $$ purposes, going with carpet, except tile in the entry/dining/kitchen. I really wish i had hardwood floors now. Though the carpet is nice... i just think i would feel cleaner with wood floors.
For the kitchen though, i have heard they aren't that great -- water and wood and stains not a good combo? -- but they sure look nice in kitchens. If you go tile, go dark... light NEVER looks clean. I hate the light colored tile.
That's just my two cents.
Moma has hardwood floors throughout her 1st floor (kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and bed room). She has one big rug in the living room and small rugs scattered else where. She really likes the hardwood because it is much easier to sweep up dog hair than to vaccuum it(not that you have dogs, but I imagine small children messes would also be easier to sweep than to vaccuum). She prefers her small rugs to the one big one, because she can throw them in the washing machine. The one personal thing I can add is I think that hardwood is prettier than carpet.
If you think about it, carpet is really pretty gross, because all kinds of stuff gets stuck down in it and stained on it. And, they're not nearly as pretty! Hardwoods age much better than carpet. And will make the house worth more when sold again (whenever that may be).
Of course, my new house has carpet everywhere but the kitchen and bathrooms. Eventually, I'd like to replace it with wood floors.
I'd say, go hardwood!
Wow - I didn't even realize you still posted here...I feel like I've missed so much!
Congrats on the house purchase! Is it official yet?
Wood floors - I have partial wood floors on the lower level. Mine are poor quality, so I have some complaints in that area. However, we have talked already about wanting to replace them and the dining room/formal living area with real hardwoods. I think it looks much classier, improves value in your home and also with kids (whether your own or guests)it just keeps the Mom from worrying over stains and spills. And like Erin said, although I do like carpet in some areas, it really is gross when you think about what gets trapped in there!
One word on hardwoods from the previous owner of Liz's house on the transition from carpet to hardwoods. She noted that the noise level was significantly louder with the carpet gone and nothing to dampen noise.
Thank you to everybody for their comments! At the moment, I am thinking that (if they are in good shape) we'll leave the living room and dining room hardwood and carpet the hall and bedrooms. I don't think there is original hardwood in the kitchen, so we'll probably eventually put ceramic tile in there. The office-type room will probably get carpet as well. I am still up in the air about the playroom. At the moment I'm leaning toward ceramic tile to match the kitchen and a rug. It's the room where the back door comes in, so I don't really want carpet there. We'll see, though.
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