The husband and I both have a deep horror of wall to wall carpeting. I have spent half of the last 15 years overseas, and dh is foreign anyhow, so maybe that's where it comes from. What sets both our teeth on edge are carpets in bathrooms, partich in rental flats in london which have been carved out of other rooms and have no natural light or air. The lurking horrors therein.
Oops, I'm pg, so thinking of that smell did me no good.
We got the floors stripped in our 1930's semi and they came up a lovely golden. My mother still makes comments about ds getting splinters and what about the draft (there was nothing much about them). But that's fair enough, when they moved into an edwardian house in the 1960s fitted carpets were a luxury and they worked hard for them.
Now we are in Scandinavia we have beech, pressurized oiled wooden floors. After the first week, I discovered that I missed the gaps between the floors boards we had in the UK, as that is where the crumbs and grit would diappear on their own accord (or maybe I just missed my dad doing the hoovering).
I enjoy being pretty laid back about what I give ds to eat, drink and play with, it can be wiped or swept away. He likes playing with the dustpan and brush and likes mopping floors. Let's hope it continues!