Talk to me about flooring when you have kids and dogs please...

[PipCarrier]

Hi all

We live in a house with what is best described as an entrance dining hall (not as posh as it sounds!). This is also the room that has a much used entrance from the garden straight into the room, the stairs and is basically the 'middle' of our downstairs living space so is a very high traffic area.

Our two big hairy dogs spend most of their day in this space, our toddler is in it and through it all day with toys etc.

At the moment we've got solid wood floors which have been down 10 years and although pristine when we moved here, have now been resanded and sealed once but are looking poor now. The dogs and various kids toys have left scratches on it, the varnish wears off quickly due to the wear and because it's light in colour it shows up all the dirt that gets trodden through.

We've been looking at sisal and coir carpets but not sure how hard wearing these are?

I do like the hygiene of wood floors, being able to sweep/mop to keep them clean but I'm at a bit of a loss what would be best and would stay looking nice...so any advice/experience please?

We have had Karndean down for 2 years. Looks like oak. Has stood up v well so far to 2 DCs and 2 dogs. No claw scratches. Easy to clean - just sweep and every couple of weeks damp mop with woodcare.

So is that like laminate flooring?

How about slate or flagstones?

Why don't you just strip back the existing wood and re seal it? Isn't that the whole point of wood?

(Val says that but her entire house is full of orange shagpile)

With kids, anything wipeclean is good. Wood, laminate, vinyl... bring it on!

Yeah, shagpile is the way to go!

Yep slate or flagstones are another option, just as the rest of the house has hard floors would be quite nice to go with the coir/sisal carpet.

Val the wood has already been stripped back and re-varnished a few years ago and although we could do it again (you can do it about a max of 3 times apparently) there's just no point because it marks up so easily...we need a longer term solution.