Do you have lino on your landing?

[SpringSpringSpring]

And if so are you happy with it? And how does it work with the top of the stairs?

[SpringSpringSpring]

Hmm I'm guessing this means no-one does... so the hunt for non-carpet alternatives continues!

So far have discarded laminate as probably too noisy and cork as too easily damaged. And the floorboards are too gappy to leave as they are.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Why not carpet?

[faceymcfuckface]

I've never seen this! Have seen sort of rubber flooring in ultra modern stylish homes but only in magazines. Lino sounds a bit weird.

[SweetPea79]

That sisal type stuff?

Why not carpet though?

[SweetPea79]

If you're looking at alternatives, I saw a leather floor on Home Front many years ago that looked amazing, but was about £600 a square metre or something (this must have been about 15/20 years ago!!)

[SpringSpringSpring]

Why not carpet?
We don't have carpet anywhere in the house as we really don't like it. We spent a lot of time living in countries where the whole house is tiled and loved that, but it's not practical in a cold country so we are trying ti find good alternatives. I know a lot of people on here are big carpet fans but it's not for us - we are quite happy to accept we might have to put down a cheap one to sell and that's fine because we're not planning on moving any time soon.

When we took up the carpets we were hoping to get something like the first picture, the reality is the boards are not great, so would have to be painted a bit like the second picture, and so then I wondered about covering them over with a continuous flat surface like lino/vinyl, something like the third picture (no idea what is actually on that floor).

[MachiKoro]

I would think you'd need to match the stairs. Are the stairs wooden? Are they just the boards with carpet taken off and painted?

[Enb76]

I don't like carpet either. I have lino in my kitchen and floorboards everywhere else. Mine are gappy but it doesn't seem to matter too much in terms of insulation. If it's a high wear area then lino is better than vinyl as the colour is all the way through rather than just on the surface, also more environmentally friendly if you care about that sort of stuff. Nice under foot too - I don't like wearing shoes in the house.

[evilharpy]

What about lvt (luxury vinyl tile)? We looked at some recently for the kitchen. Amtico, Camaro, Rhino were some of the brand names. It looks very very close to actual wood if that's what you want.

[Sonnet]

I have dark wood floorboards and a runner down the middle

[SpringSpringSpring]

Stairs are just painted boards, yes. I wouldn't mind changing them to match whatever we did on the landing - we initially did it as an experiment and found they are fine like that. Or maybe we should keep the boards and have some washable rugs down on the landing to cover the worst bits.

That's interesting about lino/vinyl thanks Enb, I wasn't sure if there really was any difference so I obviously need to do some reading up. We don't have shoes in the house either, so something nice underfoot would be good.

[superram]

We have jar dean in our hall-no reason you couldn't put it on your landing.

[wowfudge]

LVT would be a good, durable alternative to carpet. But I like carpet so apart from in bathrooms would always have carpet upstairs.

[EatingMyHat]

How about this?
www.karndean.com/en-gb/floors/designflooring-ranges/van-gogh

[SpringSpringSpring]

Thanks all! The karndean stuff could work though I'm still not sure how it would be fitted to the top of the stairs. I mean, you can't roll it over presumably, the way you do with carpet? Maybe I should go to a showroom and ask, we would get it fitted anyway.

My only other doubt is that we have wooden floorboards in the bedrooms and so fake wood going up to them might look too strange but maybe that is the same with any change of flooring.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

We don't have carpet either assist from stairs and landing- too noisy even without shoes ime.

[Enb76]

I wouldn't go for wood-a-like as I think it looks a bit rubbish if you have actual wooden flooring in your house and never quite blends.

[NattyTile]

How about coir or sisal? Could run a strip down the centre of the stairs too?

I dislike carpets but had to have them fitted on the stairs in the end for safety (non slip and mildly padded; very steep ancient staircase and carrying children).

[SpringSpringSpring]

I really like the look of coir and sisal but they would have the same limitations as carpet for us in terms of dirt - right now I feel that I need floors I can wash or pick up and put in the washing machine/hang on the line.

I know what you mean about stairs, I wasn't sure when we took the carpet up but it's felt fine, not slippy at all. I actually think rubber can look great on stairs in modern places like (1) but ours is a bit old for that to work I think - we'd probably try treads like (2) if we change our minds on bare wood.

[NattyTile]

Oh wow I love number 2 - never seen anything like that before!

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Those treads would hurt with just socks on!

[WankersHacksandThieves]

You could replace with engineered wood flooring and the can take that right down the stairs too - the use stuff like this to cover the stair edges:

www.flooringsupplies.co.uk/accessories/11091/kahrs_solid_stairnose_15mm_woodloc_35x60x1200mm?adtype=pla&keyword=&gclid=CMPjwfvckc4CFdcK0wodi4sBXA

[LBOCS2]

Why not replace the floorboards and stain in one colour?

[Takingsooty]

We've got reclaimed oak boards and TBH I'm not keen, they look attractive but are very noisy. Same on the stairs.

[SpringSpringSpring]

That's such a good idea LBOCS2, in my head the floorboards were a permanent fixture, but maybe we could get them replaced.

We've had bare boards for a while now while we try to decide what to do and haven't had any problems with noise. I was more worried about noise from laminate because it sounds a bit 'clicky' to me and so the dogs would be noisy.

We have engineeered wood downstairs and that is a definite possibility, I just wonder if it will look strange coming up the bedrooms which have stripped back floorboards.

I'm so slow at making decisions when there's no pressure - but your comments have all been really helpful, thanks!