To want carpet in living room?

[icklekid]

Clearly not a life changing issue but over the Christmas period ds (who is 6) accidentally knocked coal from the fire and damaged the carpet. I’ve tried but can’t get the stain out. This carpet is old and the last one in the house that we have renovated room by room over the last 8 years. So basically I wasn’t too cross as the carpet needed replacing anyway. Dh was very cross and is now insisting we need to replace it with hard flooring and a rug. His argument is that if it happens again what would we do. I appreciate that is true but I really prefer carpets. We have hard flooring throughout the rest of downstairs so I’m not against it in principle. Am I being ridiculous?

I have not seen any comments about this aspect of hard flooring but if it has been covered I am sorry. It also depends on what type of house your live in. In many blocks of flats and in council houses hard flooring is banned due to neighbour nuisance issues. Living in a flat below another flat with hard flooring is very noisy. I have a semi detached with neighbours next door who have hard flooring their DC are adults now but the noise is dreadful and conversations echo into my house. It is inconsiderate to the point of being anti social.

@Pearsapiece

Carpet all the way! Ds is 2 and baby on the way. I have cream carpet and light grey fabric sofas. I'm not allowing kids to compromise my cosiness in my own front room, no way! Also, get accidental damage cover on your home insurance in case it happens again. Problem solved

@Pearsapiece

Are kids banned from your living room then??

@Benjispruce2

I prefer hard floor and rugs. Easier to clean though a decent rug isn’t cheap.

Decent rugs are not cheap...Went to Liberty and saw a small, jewel like rug {years ago now} I was entranced by it , until looking at the small label..It cost as much as my house did at that time.

Insane..
Cheaper ones are available from John Lewis.

Beware some rugs that bleed colour ..Especially reds.

@WorrierorWarrior

I have not seen any comments about this aspect of hard flooring but if it has been covered I am sorry. It also depends on what type of house your live in. In many blocks of flats and in council houses hard flooring is banned due to neighbour nuisance issues. Living in a flat below another flat with hard flooring is very noisy. I have a semi detached with neighbours next door who have hard flooring their DC are adults now but the noise is dreadful and conversations echo into my house. It is inconsiderate to the point of being anti social.

I absolutely agree with this. My neighbours have hard floors downstairs and bare floor boards upstairs. I do t think they own one rug.

The noise is unbearable.

Carpet for cosines - rugs are still too hard to sit on for long periods of time. I‘ve had a lounge hardwood with rug and carpet (same room over time) and the carpet was 100 x better.

@TheSilentStars That's interesting as people always think that carpets are the cause of allergies.

I have carpets in all rooms except hallway, bathrooms and the kitchen. The laminate flooring in my en suite has always convinced me that the dust collects massively on it and it therefore requires far more maintenance than my carpeted rooms (I don't have any pets or small children so carpets don't require daily hoovering)

I far prefer carpets and I have a Bissell carpet cleaner which I use once a year to clean each room or if there is a spillage. Our current living/dining room carpets have been down for 15 years (light beige colour) and still look fine. The echoing noise generated by solid floors throughout a house would drive me bonkers.

Hard flooring. Carpets in my view are dust collectors and you can never really get them clean.

[quote bigbluebus]@TheSilentStars That's interesting as people always think that carpets are the cause of allergies.

I have carpets in all rooms except hallway, bathrooms and the kitchen. The laminate flooring in my en suite has always convinced me that the dust collects massively on it and it therefore requires far more maintenance than my carpeted rooms (I don't have any pets or small children so carpets don't require daily hoovering)

I far prefer carpets and I have a Bissell carpet cleaner which I use once a year to clean each room or if there is a spillage. Our current living/dining room carpets have been down for 15 years (light beige colour) and still look fine. The echoing noise generated by solid floors throughout a house would drive me bonkers.[/quote]
I know!
I have hard floors but since he told us just how much and how properly they need to be cleaned to be properly clean, I wish I didn't. He said when people talk about allergies to dust in carpets it's the fibres they are allergic to and he sees far more people with dust allergy from unclean hard floor than he ever does from carpet.
That said, I better go and mop!

I would just put a rug over it tbh.

I much prefer carpets personally! They look and feel much cosier. Hard floors and rugs just aren't the same.

Carpets in my view are dust collectors and you can never really get them clean

How clean do they have to be though?

I'd replace the carpet and get a fire guard.

We had wood flooring put down a couple of years ago and I personally feel it's so much better than our previous carpet, as it was so old and had stains from the kids that just wouldn't come out (when we moved in it was a very light colour that I wouldn't have chosen). I've loved the look of the wood flooring and how practical it is, however a few weeks ago my 7 yr old was jumping round on the sofas and cracked his head open. He was fine and no hospital trip needed in the end but defo something to consider from a safety perspective.

Personally I would get a hard floor in the living room.

But then I have 2 kids aged 3 and under. The amount of drinks and food spilt on the floor, I couldn't be arsed with the hassle of trying to get the stains out. I find it so much easier to clean - just a quick wipe and done. I wouldn't get a carpet in living room ever again.

Get carpet and a hearth rug.

@bigbluebus the dust is in your carpet too. It just gets trodden in.

I prefer hardwood floor and rugs. It’s easier to keep clean.
I did vote YABU because the rest of your downstairs is hard floor and rugs and so it would be a design mistake to have one odd room out with carpet in it. If the rest of your downstairs had been carpet, I would have voted YANBU because there should be continuity of either hard floor or carpet and not a ad hoc mixture.

@TheSilentStars sweeping floors once a week is nothing to do with the flooring and everything to do with hygiene standards.

I used to have carpet in my living room, now I have 3 kids 4 and under. I have carpet everywhere else (not bathroom and kitchen), but my carpet got so grubby that’s wooden flooring and rug was the only way to go. It’s so much easier now to clean up spills etc

We have carpet AND rugs in the living room. Very cosy. And easier to hoover, you don’t have to chase dust bunnies or keep mopping it!

We've got carpet in all rooms except kitchen,hall, bathrooms etc and all 4 kids have managed to not ruin them. It's just a one off incident, there should be a fire guard up anyway (sorry to be that person), just use a cheap runner to put in front of the fire to cover the new carpet. Also a rug over carpet sounds weird but makes for easier cleanup!

I adore the look of proper wooden floors but love the cosiness of carpets.

I'm not sure about carpets.

Aren't they rather difficult to clean in general?

The rugs can be taken outside, beaten, etc... Or replaced if truly not salvageable.

But I suppose I don't know enough about carpet maintenance to really know what I'm talking about.

But hard wood floor plus a rug would seem more practical to me.

My DH and I are having this argument in reverse. We have carpet (complete with small hole where an ember jumped out) and I really want oak flooring like in our dining room. Our main living room is such an area of high traffic that I'm constantly shampooing the carpet. My husband's argument is that as he's very tall it would raise the floor to our low beamed ceiling which he only just clears in places. You can make wood floor cosy with lovely soft rugs. But if you like carpet best don't compromise 😉

If it happens again - professional carpet cleaner.

They work miracles.

Carpet all the way.

Yanbu, we have hard floor through the whole of our downstairs and I hate having it in the living room. I actually can’t relax as well compared to carpet which sounds silly but it’s not cosy even though we have a rug.