Carpet or Wooden floor....any opinions ....

J

joel

Registered User
Messages
65
Hi,
I am in the process of deciding the flooring for my new house...Just wondering is it good to go with carpet or wooden floor (laminate, semi or solid)...Don't want to spend fortune on flooring....May be to go with laminate for living room and carpet for bed room.... any suggesstion...

Thanks
Joel
 
Depends on whether you have children, or are thinking about having one, whether anyone has allergies, whether there will be a lot of traffic etc
 
Well, wood will last longer than carpet, much much longer. Solid is the way to go if you can afford it for hall, living room. Tiles work better in the kitchen. It is a matter of preference then which to go for in the bedrooms. I prefer laminate with rugs. But it all depends on whether you live in the Town or Country, whether you have children who are in and out to the garden playing in which case carpets wont be much good.
 
Noise transmission and heating (e.g. carpeted rooms may hold the heat better and be more comfy) might also be factors to consider. We got a good high wool content carpet for the downstairs/stairs and ten years on it shows little signs of wear (and thankfully the colour/style hasn't aged badly either! ).
 
having put down some wooden floors a few years ago, I would definitely prefer carpets. Carpets are more comfortable underfoot, much faster and easier to lay, easy to replace, and you don't have to replace skirting. Wood floors probably last longer, are easier to clean, may have some allergy benefits, and may look better, but that is a matter of opinion.

We got a wood floor in the hall, it took nearly two days to install because he had to take off all five doors leading off the hall and take about a half inch off the bottom of each door. The carpet on the stairs and landing took only tow hours to lay and looks great.
 
We installed solid wood flooring in our livingroom and hall and although more expensive than carpet looks fabulous. I don't find it cold underfoot and find the wood brings a warm feeling to the rooms. It was expensive to lay (timber cost 3000 and laying cost 1200) but we laid it before adding our skirting boards and doors so this cut down on the work involved. My husband suffers from Asthma so carpet was out of the queston for bedrooms also so just varnished the floorboards (were in good nick).
On the stairs/landing put down a good quality carpet and this has held up well (using the no shoe rule!).
Have tiles in the kitchen and utility rooms. find these easy to clean etc..
Have seen marble tiles used in a hallway and this looked lovely. Was cold in bare feet though.
 
I'm not a woodfloor person but found loads of lovely old wide floor boards in good condition under the existing carpets when I moved into my house. Had great notions of restoring them etc. etc. etc. However, I'm so over it. We had the carpets up while sorting out central heating was not keen on the increased noise level, the drafts or the hard/cold feel of them. Yesterday I got my new carpet and the difference is amazing. It's MILES quieter. And definitely feels snugglier.

I don't have kids but live in the country (my cat arrives home smelling like a cow quite a bit). I've gone for a cream carpet everywhere. I had this in my old house and it was a major success; it even survived my halycon early twenties. I think people look at a cream carpet and get all scared so be on their best behaviour. I never employed a no-shoe rule but loads of people just took off their shoes anyway.

Whatever about wood floors, I definitely don't like tiles. To me, they are hard and cold and you are stuck with them for years.

Anyway, have great fun picking things out and don't dismiss lino out of hand. It looks a lot better than many a laminate wood floor and is cheap and easy to lay and not a budget breaker if you hate it and want to replace it in a year or two. There are some really cool "retro" looks out there too for a modern house. Mind you, I'm always preaching the positive points of lino.

Rebecca
 
Be careful about solid wood floors. A friend of mine had this and it was destroyed by high heels after a couple of months so when we got our house I straight away went for laminate.
 
Cahir said:
Be careful about solid wood floors. A friend of mine had this and it was destroyed by high heels after a couple of months so when we got our house I straight away went for laminate.
Click to expand...

Don't have a similar problem with my solid wood flooring .Can't for the life of me see how laminate is better wearing than solid wood .
Aesthetically solid wood is infinitely nicer looking than laminate imo.
 
Cahir said:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=8624&highlight=wooden+floors+heels

Not sure if I linked that correctly but others have had problems with wooden floors and heels too.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why you went for laminate because your friends had probss. with solid floors. Laminate floors are essentially a thin sheet of wood on top of plywood - solid floors are just that, 22 mm in my case, so even if the floors do get marked over time you can always sand and varnish - solid floors will last a lot longer than laminate.
 
Personally I love solid wooden flooring. I like carpets too in bedroom but think for health reasons that wooden flooring is a better option. When you see how much dust you sweep up every day you realise carpets must be walking.

I think a few marks here and there add to the look of solid wood. It sin't supposed to look perfect in my opinion which is why so many people opt for reclaimed wood, with flooring from old school houses being particluarly popular.
 
Just look in any pub. The floors look like hammered metal.

A house I viewed when buying had wooden floors from one end of it to the other, all solid and I'd say they were lovely when in but they were completely ruined with shoe and furniture marks. I'm not that fussy but it looked really bad and the idea of having to sand them all back or even carpet over them was one of the things that put me off the house.

Rebecca
 
Nobody is mentioning semi-solid wooden flooring.

This is a nice middle ground between laminate and solid floors as it is cheaper to purchase than solid and a lot less labour intensive to install while you still get the quality look of fully solid flooring.

Agree with the tiles being cold sentiment, unless you have the wedge for underfloor heating. A friend of mine has this under limestone tiles and its a delight to walk on.
 
I think there may be some confusion over definition of "wood" floor types here.
Solid flooring is just that, solid timber boards min. 19mm thick.
Semi-solid flooring is a hardwood veneer 3-4mm bonded to a plywood substrate, giving an overall thickness of 15mm plus.
Laminate flooring is an MDF based, comprising an MDF core laminated with melamine which may be printed to represent various tpes of wood veneer.

It is incorrect to refer to semi-solid flooring (which is a composite solid wood product) as "laminate". Laminate is about one half to one third the cost of a semi-solid product anyway.

Rebecca is quite correct about lino, which is now a popular choice, especially in kitchens etc. Marmoleum is a quality (if expensive) natural lino (as opposed to PVC) which has excellent environmental credentials and is claimed to have good anti bacterial/ hypo allergenic qualities.
 
We are getting carpet in the bedrooms & sitting room(for noise control and heating insulation) and Lino Tiles! They are basically high quality(very bouncy &thick) lino cut into squares like tiles. My friend had these in her kitchen and they looked exactly like tiles only much warmer underfoot and as easy to clean as tiles. She recently got bored of her kitchen and replaced the white kitchen doors to wood and it was so easy to just take up the Lino and choose another type of lino tile again. Cheap, easy and anyone with Asmath need not worry as she is severly asmathic but has had no problems with the lino. She also got Wood Effect Lino(not cheap exactly - 49.99 per Sq meter but saved money on the laying!)and it looks fantastic in her sitting room with her large rug and also in the hall. Just another option to consider.
 
Hi All, I want to run with semi- solid oak throughout my kitchen and dining room,if I were to lightly sand the kitchen portion of the flooring and give it a couple of coats of a good varnish such as ronseal diamond would this suffice...........thanks. p.s I know it comes pre-finished but I thought it might help in the event of a water spill
 
Hi all,
Thanks for your opinions. I decided to go for solid wooden floor for the hall and the laminate for the bed rooms.....

-Joel
 
Sarah, do you know where your friend got the lino tiles? I'm looking for lino for our new kitchen but like the idea of lino tiles as sheets of lino over a large space can "buckle" I've found. Thanks.



 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register