Hardwood Floor or Carpet

hardwood ....all the way!

allergy-friendly.
cleaner.
lasts longer if you go with real hardwood. Any dents, nicks, gouges add to the charm!
less work....I hate having to shampoo the carpets!

I'm going to probably be the minority here, but I hate hardwood floors with a passion. I'll take carpet (and vacuuming) any day over dust bunnies, sweeping, and mopping!

Hi, T:

Do you have hard wood flooring under the carpet?
If you do, can you sand them?
If you don't, have you thought about
the vinyl flooring that looks like wood?
Just a thought.
Yes, I love my real hardwood floors and
I love my vinyl wood looking floors too.

D.

I've had both; prefer solid hard wood over carpet. We currently have a combo of tile (HATE those ever-dirty grout lines) and carpet and the carpet's reaching the end of its life. When we make the change, we'll either put in solid bamboo -- or I've seen long, plank-style cork "tiles" that look rather interesting and are comfy underfoot and better in the kitchen and bathrooms than hard wood. Either way, though, we'll definitely put down large rugs in the main living areas and bedrooms. I'm a big lover of comfy rugs!

I have a combo of both. Carpet upstairs and hardwood down. When I bought this home it had hardwood thoughout and it looked beautiful but as I thought about it I chose to carpet the upstairs since we really only sleep there and carpet is much warmer! I love the upstairs and how easy it is to clean as well as we can walk and not wake the whole house! Downstairs is beautiful but my god in the winter its cold and I know its due to the lack of carpet. Also I am pretty busy and the fact that I need to at least dry mop daily it can be a pain! I have several times sat and thought about carpeting the downstairs but I am holding out for at least another season! Good luck with whatever you choose!

We have both in the house, and most people I know have some kind of combo as well.
Both have their disadvantages, but for me, I'd rather sweep or mop a hardwood floor, than deal with a carpet once it gets dingy/dirty.

If you have little kids, it's going to get destroyed. Our living room rug is gross. Vacuuming and steam cleaning make it nice for a day, but then it's back to gross. And now matter how hard you try, stains just don't come out.

On hardwood, you'll have scratches, but you don't have to worry about that "dirty" look all the time.

JMO.

I LOVE HARDWOOD FLOORS. I love the look and I think it is easier to keep clean. We have handscraped wood which is not as slick as some other hardwood floors, and it doesn't show marks as easily as some of the smoother finishes. We has a smooth finish hardwood in our old house and we could see all the claw prints from our dog, on these floors we don't see anything. We had carpet in our first place and it seemed that I was always trying to clean up spots. The downside to hardwood is that it's easier to see dust and for us dog hair, but a swiffer or a vacuum gets most of it and then I steam clean the floors about once a month.

Solid hardwood all the way. It's cleaner, I think much prettier and you can always put down rugs if you want cushion or to add warmth. Best of all if you have real wood instead of laminate it's a "forever" floor. You can re-finish instead of replace down the road. Where we are from it also increases the value of your home.

Wood floors are better! Easier to clean, helps with allergens. Get wood floors that you do not have to strip and refinish every few years. They have so much out there now so get the kind that has little to no maintenance involved!

We always had carpet in northern MI cuz it kept the house warmer but was more work. We moved down to NC several years ago and carpet is not used down there as much at all. Wow, what a change and we loved it. Now we're up in PA and it's 50/50 here if you see it or not cuz of cooler weather but I wouldn't go back to carpet again.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

I would go with laminate. It it is easier to maintain, and less expensive for the same look, and you can put it down yourself so you save in labor cost. however you should get a nice area rug because bare floor do make a room colder in the winter

Hardwood. Classier.

laminate 'wood' floors.

While carpet is pretty, keeps the home a bit warmer & soft to walk on...it does have it's downside. Depending on the type of carpet, it can trap pet hair, dust, & fleas if you have pets that go in/out. Even if you vacuum all the time, it's no guarantee you'll be able to get it all up. It gets dirty after awhile & hafta steam clean. After it gets worn and/or stained beyond steam cleaning, you hafta replace it. Me & my hubby vowed to not have carpet in the next home we buy just b/c it's a lot of trouble compared to wood flooring or tile. We may go w/a nice throw rug over the floor instead, for a nice 'carpet look' but they can be easily replaced or taken outside to 'beat' the dust out of it if vacuuming doesn't help much or rolled up if you want to change to regular flooring for a different look. You can easily sweep wood or tile. My parents have real wood floors & my mom said that you hafta buff & keep it polished once in a while to keep it from drying out & keep it pretty compared to faux wood like Pergo though, which makes sense since you hafta polish wood furniture, you should hafta polish wood flooring too I would think. Most people go w/Pergo or artifical wood flooring due to it's easy installation & easy keeping. I do know that if one part of the wood gets deeply gouged or scratched, you can cut that piece out & replace only that one piece. You can w/carpet too but I would think that wood or even faux wood is easier to deal with long term, over all, compared to carpet. Hope this helps. The only thing I can say is weigh long term pros & cons of both, maybe write them down side by side & that may help your decision. Good luck!

I am SO regretting the hardwood we put in. I have 3 small daughters and it SHOWS on the floor! There are dents from where they dropped their sippy cups, scratches from where they dragged their toys across it, etc. Also, it shows EVERY speck of dust, every pet hair, every crumb.

With kids I would TOTALLY get laminate and carpet.

We've always had carpet, which I love, but have family with hardwoods. I don't like hardwoods for a number of reasons:
1. Slippery. Our kids fall all the time on these floors.
2. Cold. Not a comforting feeling walking on them.
3. High maintenance. People here post about having to clean them daily (although our family members don't). Yikes. I don't know any working mom with time to do that. Have heard from numerous people it's a bit of work to actually clean them with the hardwood cleaners. I prefer the ease of just vacuuming.
4. People put carpets on them anyway. I don't really get this. People get hardwoods but then put big rugs on them. You now have to clean hardwoods AND vacuum carpet.

I know I'm in the minority as hardwoods are trendy now, but I prefer the softness and ease of a high quality carpet. We have cut-pile berber and love it!

ETA: I'm raising my eyebrows at all of the icky, stained carpets. Grossing me out! We've had the same carpet in our house 12 years now and it looks good as new, even with two kids and a dog. Most carpets now have built in stain protectant. We use spot cleaner immediately if anything spills (and this is pretty rare) and steam clean at least once a year. The right maintenance and it looks beautiful.

Hardwood floors are so much easier to keep clean.
People like carpet because it makes the floor feel warmer on their feet or because it's a noise control thing (that's why apartments love carpets).
I think an area rug or two on hardwood floors work well in most areas, they are easier to clean, change if you want something new, and protect high traffic areas.

I have a two story house, the upstairs is carpeted and the downstairs is hardwood floors. I love my hardwood floors, but in the winter (even though I do live in Texas) the downstairs is a lot colder and I think the flooring has a lot to do with it. I know "heat" rises, but we shut off all of our vents for the upstairs and just have the downstairs open. It's still much colder downstairs than it ever gets upstairs. Living in Pennsylvania you may want to consider that. Cleaning up messes on hardwood floors vs carpeted areas are much easier. I think carpet does give your foot a little more cushion so I'm always wearing my house shoes, just for some type of support on the hardwood floors.
Anyway, I would take hardwood floors over carpeted ones.

My house is a mix of ceramic, hardwood and laminate. No carpet. The only negatives is you have to sweep everyday if you are like me, a barefoot creature and it does not absorb sound like carpet so you hear every noise throughout the house.

We got earphones for the family room TV for off hour viewing. :p

I've had both.

I prefer hardwood floors. We currently have carpet, but when finances permit, We'll have hardwood again. But I was in a home the other day that had granite or marble floors. It looked fantastic, but I didn't know them well enough to ask about maintenance requirements.

Suggestion: Go to where they sell expensive new homes and look at their floors. The people that can live in mansions can have any kind of floor they want. See what they get and how you like them. If you go barefoot at your home, take your shoes and socks off and see how the different floors feel.

Good luck to you and yours.

I so prefer my hard floors to the carpet. It looks nicer, and looks and feels cleaner. The only thing is, they are not as forgiving of dust and hair as carpet is. I have to do at least some sweeping every day to keep my floors looking nice. But it is also much easier and faster to do a sweep than to get the vacuum out all the time! For me, I will never have carpet again, except maybe in the bed rooms.

We still have carpet upstairs, so the floor isn't cold when I get out of bed and it's quieter. Downstairs, we started off with carpet (and vinyl in the kitchen) and went through the years of having crumbs, spills, and pet hair until it was really gross. We regularly used a carpet cleaner wet vacuum, but it didn't get everything. We ripped it out and replaced it with laminate floor from Sam's Club.
We installed it ourselves in about a week. Borrowed a radial arm saw and nail gun. After removing the small patch of tile by the front door, there were a few other tricky spots, like under the stove and in front of the dishwasher. I used cardboard to make patterns for difficult shapes. We added a foam baseboard and quarter round.
It stays cleaner than the carpet or vinyl ever did. I sweep, mop or steam mop and try not to get it too wet. We added doormats and area rugs in the high traffic areas that can be cleaned separately. Felt feet on all the chairs and furniture to prevent scratches. It took a lot of reminders for our son to stop dropping or dragging toys across it.
It has been harder on my feet than the carpet was. Also, if I had to do it again, I'm not sure I would have chosen laminate for the kitchen. Last week we had a water leak from the refrigerator. We had to undo most of the floor in the kitchen. Luckily most of it dried OK and we had saved some extra boards just in case. But I was reminded how much I hated the old vinyl underneath, and how easy the laminate was to snap together. Overall, I love it.

I think it depends on your expectations and on whether you're talking about "real" wood or a laminate wood floor. We ripped up the carpet in a number of rooms to expose the original hardwood. The wood was already aged, worn, even stained in a few spots. That look doesn't bother me at all, because I think it looks like it has character. I know other people think that older floors look dirty, but that's a preference thing. My opinion on laminate is this - when you install a brand new floor, it looks perfect. You notice every ding, every scuff, every scratch because it started out so smooth and shiny...

The main reason we haven't pulled up the carpet in our family room is noise. Sounds are definitely muffled better by carpeting. We also like a little cushioning for our little peanut as she's navigating her locomotion stages ;) The flip side of that is that our boys got overconfident on the carpet and then had issues when they were at someone else's house without all the protection :o Only other thing is that they are now getting used to the slipperiness (is that even a word?) that comes with big boy socks, without the little grippies on the bottom.

You don't mention which rooms have carpet, but I'd suggest this... If your dining room is carpeted, start there. Get rid of the carpeting and see how you feel about whatever you choose (since you absolutely won't miss the carpeting there).

Depends on your circumstances.
hardwood - pros- easy to clean. cons- dust and scratches show up, hard underfoot.
carpet- pros- soft underfoot. cons - wet stains are hard to get out, difficult to get truely clean.

with baby, we have hardwood, and foam tiles. the spills and spit up on our carpeting was getting too disgusting.

I LOVE my hardwoods, but have carpet in my boys' room because they spend a lot of time on the floor and it's NOISY.

Hardwoods are SO easy to clean and take care of. No stains in the carpet.

Be sure to consider that heat does rise (and, conversely, cool air falls) so be sure your house is well insulated before messing with hardwoods. An insulated space under your floors makes ALL the difference with the noise and heating/cooling.

We just put hardwood throughout my downstair with the exception of the family room which we purchased wall to wall carpet. I love the look of the hardwood and it is perfect for the stairs, study, LR and DR but I really like the feel of carpet in the family room. We sit or lie down on the floor in the family room all the time so I just don't think I would like the feel of hardwood even with a rug on top. My kitchen, morning room and laundry room have tile which is great for cleaning but very hard to stand on.

I would do hardwood through some or most of the house.
We have the wood in our bedrooms (just add rugs).
Great to have carpet in the living/family rooms as they are cozier but if
you worry about the dust that gets trapped in the carpet...get hardwood.

Then add rugs for comfort, sound absorption & warmth.
Great thing about rugs is they are easier to clean & you can change them
out OFTEN for a different look or if they become tattered/worn.
We have hardwood in the bedrooms & it does make it cooler so we've
added some rugs.
When we changed our carpet we had wood floors underneath. Thought
we should have kept them but glad we didn't.
We can always change them. I like the warmth. We can all lay/down &
relax in those rooms.
It's nice to know they are under there so I can change them out someday.
My friend has ceramic tile floors. Nice but her house is always cold and
echoes!
So I say some hardwood w/rugs & a bit of carpet in a room or two.
Also, good for re-sale value

I think hardwood is considered "higher end" and more elegant than carpet. Almost all new, nice homes in expensive areas have a certain amount of hardwood. I think it looks beautiful and you can use area rugs for decoration as well as warmth. It is cold and hard on your feet though. When we put in all hardwood downstairs and on our staircase, I wanted a carpet runner on the stairs bc we had little kids. My husband protested but once we had it, he said how much he liked it bc it's so much softer to walk on. It's amazing how hardwood wears on your feet and legs. I think it's also pretty normal even in expensive houses to have wall to wall upstairs for warmth/comfort. But you could do hardwood with runners in the hallway and big area rugs in the bedrooms so you're not actually walking on the floor much but see it surrounding the rugs. I believe that's one of the most "classy" looks you can have. Classy bc it's expensive...

When we bought our building, our apartment had carpeting in the frontroom. It seemed like really nice carpet but man after a few days I realized it stunk. Major. I tore that thing up myself. It turned out we had great floors underneath. We are going to refinish the floors and just keep the hardwood. We have had area rugs that were totally ruined by the kids or baby sitter (husbands niece) so I can just imagine what the carpeting would look like now. After we refinish we will put area rugs in the bedrooms. It is easier for my kids to clean when they just sweep or vacuum and then swiffer. We do vacuum the wood floors. We do major cleaning on weekends when I use my steam mop.

I had carpet, and now have hardwood floors. They are easier to clean, and you don't have to worry about stains. In the winter/summer months especially. Dust,mold,crumbs,etc. anything gets in carpets. For me, having hardwood floors is cleaner. I have allergies, so it helps me to not have carpet.

We have been getting rid of all the carpet in our house and I LOVE having hardwood floors. I have no complaints. It's soooo much better than yucky stained carpet. It's very clean and in areas where the kids will sit and play you can put down a nice soft rug. I really dislike carpet.