I am sat here typing quite down in the dumps about decisions I have made about our kitchen and back room living area. It was "my project" and DH chipped in with some advice but just left it to me decide on how I wanted things. Im not blaming him btw nor am I annoyed with him
Basically, i have thought about our back room for months before undertaking the work but its all gone a bit out the window now.
We ripped all the old carpets out of the back room, ripped out half a kitchen which the previous owners installed to the back room beside the kitchen and have also pulled out the old actual kitchen and re positioned the pipes/ boiler etc.
Initially, I was dead set on having a stud wall rebuilt to separate the two rooms but midst my father in law and H doing that, I changed my mind as it seemed to cut the kitchen short and make a bottle neck of doors at one end of a very small galley kitchen.
The stud walls werent plastered at this stage and were taken down so now there is a 2door width gap with no real space to add doors again if you see what I mean unless a stud wall is rebuilt and a single door attached.
As we thought the room was going to be two separate (well, this is my recollection but my H recalls it differently!), we laid down pvc wood effect plank tiles. The plan was to use the adjoining room as a daily living room/ den type place with a 90x90 cm extendable table at one end, a 3 seater in the middle section and shelving at the bottom section where the wide opening is. It gets all the sun and its lovely and bright until about 2.30 - 3pm.
We had planned to carpet as the bottom floor in our house is totally freezing in the winter despite cavity walls insulated - its a 1930s house.
We have a stripped wood floor in the front room and we have a huge 2.5x 2.5 m rug in the middle to keep some heat in and I still find it freezing.
Last night I was thinking about all the crumbs and little bits of cheese my toddler loves to get around the floor and thought, "why oh why are we having carpet". The plan is have another one sometime soon, so double the food mess!
I asked Mr could we not lay real wood and he said no chance as it would mean re flooring the kitchen, taking some fitted kitchen units out and taking a door frame off to shave some wood from the bottom and rehanging. It would also mean re plastering in the back room for some reason (think around skirting boards there is some issue). We struggle to find not busy and good tradespeople around here so finding the person to do well is also hard.
He said we have to have carpet now and I need to order it soon. It was our plan to have some cheapish dark grey carpet and accept that it might have to be put in the skip 5-7 years down the line. Wasteful, I know.
I want to get carpets cleaned every 6-12 months for sure and I have just ordered some cheap oilcloth pvc table cloth as a splash mat to see how we get one with that before the carpet is laid.
Everyone is so in love with wood in the ground floor of their houses and I understand - its so easy to keep clean and with carpets, you have to live with the ground in grub unless you clean it with a rug dr or professionally.
Also, Im a bit worried about the open plan living now as our extraction fan is not great and can't be relocated to an external wall in the kitchen as there isn't enough wall space to house a hob and an extractor hood - our kitchen is teeny. We are vegetarian, dont fry often and dont really go for spicy food but we do love garlic!
We are planning on a leather sofa of some nice sort as we thinking perhaps food smells wont attach as easily.
I guess im just worried about how the house would fair on the market if we ever did need to sell it.
Can anyone advise on how smelly leather sofas in open plan get?
Please can someone give me success stories about carpet in dining areas to make me feel better?