Dilemma-laminate or carpet in our living room?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

We currently have a cream carpet. And 2 toddler boys. Hence the need to now replace the carpet. I am not sure whether to get another carpet, but darker shade, or just get laminate?

What would be most sensible?

How old are your boys? We've got wooden floors but I'm having carpet in the lounge when we (eventually) move as DS is a nightmare climber and I want a soft surface for him and my next potential tree monkey!

You can get some really nice darker neutral shades now with lovely texturing, so should be more child-friendly

laminate! its so easy to keep clean.

we have hardwood in our front room, it looks lovely.

Carpet.

Thought about a really dark carpet but the room is south facing so I'm worried it would fade with sun damage? Our sofas are sun damaged already after 3 years...

What sort of house do you live in? Is your living room adjoining your next door neighbours living room?
Carpet deadens a lot of noise, where as laminate doesn't. Obviously depends on how bothered you are about the neighbours hearing your noise. I however, do wish one of my neighbours would put a carpet down. I can hear every raised voice on one side, where as on the other side, barely a peep.

We are in a detached house so noise won't be a problem for neighbours.

Carpet or proper wood I reckon. Based on nothing at all apart from the fact that I hate laminate and want to rip it up wherever I see it!

I don't like carpet downstairs personally - would prefer wood with rugs - much easier to keep clean.

Carpet or hardwood floor - pref the latter with rugs.

I can't stand laminate - sorry.

I can't bear laminate. You can get real wood floors for not much more (money) than laminate these days, so I would go for that option.

We have laminate in rest of downstairs so think it would look weird to have a different hard floor in the living room now?

We've got hardwood downstairs and a huge deep shag pile rug that is lovely underfoot and great for protecting little heads that fall off the sofa

I think in a living room I would veer towards carpet, and choose something textured-ish that is a bit more forgiving on any possible stains. MOST things if attacked straight away won't leave a stain. Maybe be a bit strict about no messy food/juice in there?
(Says she watching DS eat cherry tomatoes dribbling pips over the chair and rug... ).

I think laminate is fine for real common ways/hard use areas. Even in a playroom. But the living room sort of needs to be more squishy in my opinion! The only other thing I would say about which colour is my sister had a chocolate brown carpet and was forever moaning about what it showed up in terms of muck? Sometimes dark isn't better - think of black tops with baby sick/toddler vomit on, or is that just me...?

I think only have carpet if you can afford a good quality one with a decent wool content.

Cheap carpets just look dirty and crappy very quickly and you will either

a) end up hating it but living with it because you can't afford to replace it,

or b) having to pay again to replace it with something else.

Good quality carpets absorb an amazing amount of crap without staining or getting too smelly.

Having said that my preference would always be for hard wood floors and rugs. I just hate that feeling of panic when a glass of red splatters all over the carpet like a murder scene

Re laminate - I guess it depends whether you're talking cheapo or something like Amtico?

I'm thinking of going for carpet now, as some have said it would be nice to have carpet in one room given the rest is laminate. I think a brown would get sun damage quickly (our sofa looks crap from the sun) so I'm thinking a kind of mink /stone colour with some flecks in? So not too light & not too dark... Plus we also have a fireplace with a curved stone base & I'm not sure how a hard floor would get fitted round it without looking naff.

Carpet. We have laminate in our new kitchen diner and I hate it already. It shows up every speck of dust, is echoey and looks fake.

I'm not bitter.