Living room/dining room floor - wooden or carpet - decisions decisions!

[howlongwilltheynap]

I am rubbish at making decisions and need some help please!

We are knocking down the wall between living room and dining room, so need new flooring. It is a modern house.

DH wants carpet as it is cosier (he has a horrible laminate in his house he now rents so I'm sure that is colouring his view).

I am leaning towards engineerd wood for practical reasons - we only have a tiny tiny hall so everyone coming in with muddy shoes/boots tramples straight into the living room. We have 2 very small boys with all the eating/weaning/playing/painting etc mess that goes with it. I also want something that looks stunning, our house is rather plain and boring at the moment.

Any views/experiences?

I would go for the wooden flooring. so much more practical and longer lasting, and if you do it right will look really great. Do you think he would be happy with a really big rug around the living room area?

We've got 3 young dcs and all the associated mess that comes with it and put engineered wood throughout our ground floor. It replaced a carpet which was, frankly, disgusting after only 4 or so months of eatings/weaning etc. I also find it much easier to sweep the mess up at the end of the day than I ever did getting the hoover out to clean the carpet.

We've had laminate before and it was horrible but I love our wooden floor. We have a big rug near the sitting area so that's cosy but I'm so glad we don't have carpet throughout.

We also didn't go for a high sheen finish which I think is a bit more forgiving when it comes to marks/dirt etc.

the whole of our downstairs is wood, and i love it. big rug on the sitting room floor though. honestly, with kids/pets, its fab. mop it, and see how dirty the mop is, with carpet you'd be living with that grime permanently!

engineered wood definitely
we have it and it is so easy to take care of.

you can put relatively cheap rugs down and replace when they get trashed which is what we do.

So glad to find this discussion!! I just can't make up my mind. My cat has finished off my old carpet by delighting in clawing it to bits. If it was just me I'd like another carpet (warm, soft) but I'd risk spending money just to have Leo unravel it in no time. Plus he's occasionally sick. And brings me "presents", alive, dead, bloodied. It has been suggested I get rid of the cat. However, now my son is too big to be cuddled (he says), Leo's my substitute baby! On brink of wooden floor, tho worried about not feeling warm. Can put a rug down...but, talk about an invitation to you-know-who! Oh, my head hurts. No further on. Just have to take the plunge I guess.