Carpet or hard flooring in bedrooms?

[december2020]

I wasn't sure what section was most appropriate so also posted this in the Property/DIY boards.

Help I'm torn:

I love the idea of either laminate or engineered wood flooring in bedrooms (with then a rug or a few for "get out of bed with warm feet" and coziness to tie the room together). It's so much easier to keep clean with vacuuming and mopping any spills etc. (I have mild allergies, we have a dog who sheds like no other and about to have our first child).

But I can see the value of carpets and insulating the house more as well as of course an additional layer of noise prevention.

And of course down the eventual line I also think about house value.

Would I be absolutely stupid to consider hard flooring or should I just stick to carpet?

I wouldn't worry about house value - people will put what they prefer on the floor when they own it.

I do think noise can be an issue if you have laminate or wood floor upstairs, but that will depend on who, and how people use your bedrooms. If you have kids playing in them, then i'd go carpets

Beyond that, it is personal preference / taste.
I'm a fan of a carpet myself, but that is just my preference.

Carpet

Quieter

Warmer

Carpet.

Wood flooring, I am asthmatic , it’s so much less dusty and I can breathe.
I have a fairly simple bedroom, metal bedstead, old oak furnishings, big comfy chair, rug. I find it very peaceful

We have hard flooring exclusively downstairs and carpets, mostly, upstairs. We do have a guest bedroom with engineered wood and it’s lovely. It’s not used so often though. Our other bedrooms have carpets. We do have a flat over our garage and that’s oak flooring throughout but we don’t have anyone living below it. It can be noisy so I would avoid in children’s’ rooms but it’s certainly lovely in quieter rooms. This is all assuming you have decent heating and insulation!

Wood flooring for me, no question. Feels lovely on bare feet. Easy to clean. Looks great. But everyone's different, whatever you prefer.
If you are in a flat with neighbours below, usually carpet is better, to minimise noise.

Tiles downstairs, wood upstairs.

It's easier to keep clean I find.

We have laminate everywhere (except for tiles in kitchen and bathroom, and carpet on the stairs). I would never carpet anything but stairs, mostly for cleaning. It's soo much easier to keep hard flooring clean - and we have a toddler, so that's really important to us. We've even now taken the rug out of the dining room as it was underneath her little table and chairs and she's decided she wants to eat most of her meals there now, standing up, inevitably dropping huge lumps of wheetabix and ketchup and whatever else all over the rug, so that's gone too as it was just getting wrecked. We have a rug in our living room and that's it. DD and DH both have mild asthma and DH has dust mite allergy (I'm guessing DD does too tbh) so there's another reason for us not to have carpet, easier to manage dust.

Carpet, I only like hard floors in kitchen, bathrooms and hallways. Bedrooms especially, I just wouldn't find a hard floor homely, even with rugs.

I have laminate. Get carpet.

Bedrooms + stairs = carpet.
Bathrooms, kitchens + utility rooms = tiles.
Everywhere else = laminate.

This is nearly what as have in our house except the kitchen and utility room are also laminate rather than tiles. It means the whole of downstairs has the same laminate throughout (it's a special waterproof one but not for bathrooms).

If I had to choose a whole house either carpet or laminate, I would prefer laminate with lots of (big) rugs in the rooms. As it is, we already have one rug in our living room, one runner and doormat in the hall way, a few mats in the utility room and another rug in the study!!

What are the floors like in your house? Is it fairly new and modern or older with character. Laminate can be very expensive if you need something done to your floor first to make it suitable to lay on (cant remember exactly what it was) which is more common in upstairs rooms of older houses.

Wood and tiles downstairs, definitely carpet upstairs. Much quieter and your kid(s) will be doing a LOT of falling over/ off things for the first few years. Falling on carpet is much nicer!

I prefer carpet. We have recently moved into our newly renovated bedroom, and because it has really beautiful original 200 year old wide wooden floorboards we have kept them bare, except for a large rug in the dressing area.

They may look stunning, and call me a philistine, but I miss carpet. I suffer from Reynauds and have terrible circulation, so my feet are always freezing. I have to live in sheepskin slippers.

Additionally, dd’s bedroom is below. She complains if I have a phone/Zoom conversation after she’s gone to bed because it’s ‘too noisy’. She also fell down the bare wooden stairs, poor thing, and hurt herself quite badly. If they’d had carpet on it wouldn’t have been so bad - plus she probably wouldn’t have slipped in the first place.

We are doing the kids’ bedrooms now, and they have both firmly voted to have carpet. I have overruled Dh and will be carpeting the guest rooms and main stairs too. Downstairs will remain wood - I can live with that.

I had wood in my last bedroom and eventually had carpet put down... so much better! Just moved and have fitted bedrooms and stairs with wonderful thick pure wool carpets. Living spaces (open plan) will be tiled with underfloor heating.... can't bear cold feet ever again! Hoovered regularly and professionally deep cleaned most years though.