If you hate carpet, what should you have on the floor?

[Rooners]

I am determined not to have carpets at our new flat. It's Victorian and the floors are all just boards at present apart from vinyl in some of the rooms, and laminate in the living room (which has seen better days but isn't bad).

I'm a graduate of bare floorboards and am hesitant to have them there because of problems with noise (for downstairs' sake), cracks that food/etc can get down, and splinters (which we have had a lot of here in the last 6 years).

My top priorities are that it is easy to clean, hard wearing and still looks nice in ten years or so.

We also have a limited budget.

Can anyone suggest anything? There are three bedrooms to cover, kitchen and bathroom will probably stay vinyl (I don't like to use tiles over boards really) and the hall, landing and two staircases. There is some hardboarding already on the landing which I presume had carpet over it.

Thinking of rubber/vinyl on stair treads with 'nosings' to prevent slipping (though it might look a bit commercial!)

All thoughts appreciated.

Hi Rooners, I was just like you - I wanted laminate floors for hygiene reasons but my freeholder has barred the installation of hardwood flooring because of noise complaints.

I looked at various ways round it, such as soundproofing, using vinyl floors , challenging the ruling, or installing it anyway and taking my chances, but ultimately I could still be sued or forced to rip it all out anyway and replace with carpeting.

Also, after reading extensively about the grief and stress that noise from hardwood flooring causes to other people, I've finally come round to carpets.

But good luck. And think of the neighbours downstairs who have to live with the noise.

I have 'tile laminate' (B&Q, slate) in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry cupboard, and we're going to lay it in the hall too. This is the third house that we've used it in - love it.

Thanks all so much for your thoughts.

I hadn't realised that hardwood flooring would cause noise for the people downstairs - I always imagined the thicker the floor, and the more layers, the better? But I must be being naive.

I don't think we can afford it anyway - laminate would be a stretch. Primallass, thank you - is that the tiles that slot together? I saw those in B&Q a few years ago. I'll check them out.

The bit I'm most worried about is the stairs and landings as I've been to a couple of carpet shops this morning, and both have said they never get asked to lay anything but carpet on stairs. And how expensive it is to do anything else.

Good point about the lease, I hadn't thought of that - we will check. But we are freeholders with the other people so maybe we could get that changed.

Currently there's just carpet on the lower stairs, and nothing on the upper ones which have been painted in pretty colours

Main reasons against carpet are difficulty in cleaning it, especially as it will get really dirty with three boys - and it being slippery, and also I can't get wool carpet as we have a problem with moths in our rented flat and I'm worried we'll bring them with us. So it would have to be polypropylene which is horrible and goes flat and nasty after a year or two.

Is there another way?

Carpet isn't slippery.

Get your boys to take their shoes off in the hall and create a space for them to leave their shoes in the hall.

Buy a vax carpet shampooer.

Get a sensible colour, or stripes.

Get a wool mixture.

Thanks for the suggestions;

The only time I've fallen down the stairs has been on carpet so I distrust it. I'm not sure why I managed to slip on it. I think it's the rolled edge that did it. Our house has rounded edge stair treads and I think putting carpet on those is going to make them more slippery.

I might be wrong though, do we have any statistics? I just feel unsafe on carpeted stairs.

Regarding the boys and shoes, there's barely anywhere to store anythign in the hall though I intend to try - but I think it's inevitable that the stairs will get used with shoes on sometimes.

We have a Vax but it lives in the cellar as it is horribly noisy and not that effective. I cannot imagine using it on stairs, however, there may be something smaller that would work. I will look into it if we end up with carpet.

The colour could make a difference yes. But would a wool mix really put off moths?

I think for now I'm going to just take up the carpet that's there, and leave it, and see how we get on with wood. The rooms can all be vinyl or laminate or whatever, so that will help with the noise - I might just paint the stairs with diamond hard floor paint or the darkest varnish I can find.

Talk to your friends and neighbours, ask around about if they have carpet , and if so, how often they fall down their stairs.

Have a read of reviews on amazon, see if anyone has managed to find a carpet cleaner that doesn't burst your eardrums and has a stair attachment.

As for your boys, see if you can encourage in them the ability to be domestically considerate a percentage of the time, it's good training. I speak as the mother of sons , who will one day be husbands. I also speak as the wife of someone not brought up to be domestically considerate! I wish dh's mother has brought him up properly!

Moths are like chickenpox or measles, something you try not to get but hey.. Life happens, right. Don't beat yourself up trying to side step all the 'what if' scenarios.

Finally if you want lino on your stairs you can have it installed. I'm sure I recall linoleum on stairs, from my childhood.

I find wooden stairs really slippy , and lino even slippier, and both are cold and noisy.

Three boys and un carpeted stairs? hands over ears

You live in an upstairs flat and you are considering not having carpeted stairs?

Honestly, your downstairs neighbours will hate you. Even if you try your best to be quiet.

At least carpet the stairs. Find something in a mid to dark tone or even stripy and the dirt won't show. By the way we have moths and they haven't touched the carpet (which is wool or wool mix, not sure).

Safety - I am willing to bet that 80%+ of stairs in the UK are carpeted and there aren't daily reports of people falling down the stairs. I'd say bare wood stairs can be jolly slippery.

Personally I'd carpet the bedrooms too in a flat if only for good neighbourly relations. But if you really don't want to, how about bamboo? It's good value, real and very hardy. Not for kitchen and bathroom though - vinyl or marmoleum there.

Could you have something like sisal or similar grass type carpet? I've seen stair runners made out of it. It tends to be a bit rough on the surface and not slippery, and would muffle the sound.

Thanks for the ideas. I considered lino/marmoleum but wasn't sure how to edge it properly on stair treads, though it would be nice in the bedrooms. We probably can't afford it anyway tbh.

Also it isn't likely to muffle the sound very much though it would be easier to clean than carpet.

Sisal etc is a good idea but I had it once in a bedroom and it produced the most enormous quantities of dust, for some reason.

I'm thinking now of painting/varnishing the stairs but then putting a carpet runner on them, if that would seem appropriate? It might be cheaper to fit and change if it does get filthy or moth eaten, but should sort out the noise issue to some extent?

I'm sorry, but I didn't realise quite how offensive my idea of not having carpet would be.

Fwiw we have the top two floors in a Victorian house, the children's rooms are both on the top floor, which should help, and the elderly lady downstairs is used to having four children upstairs, three of them boys and aged between 11 and 16 - I have repeatedly said to her that we will try our best to be quiet, and I hope she won't be disturbed by us but she refuses to let me say it, insisting that she is used to it and likes the noise of children.

Mine are only 1, 7 and 11 and we don't have their friends round if I can help it very much so I hope we won't be a nuisance to her.

I am still worried about slipping though. We had quite a thick carpet on the old stairs and the curve at the edge seemed to be the problem.

We all used to fall down them from time to time. I don't want to cause noise having lived under other people's stairs many times over the years, but I don't want our stairs to be a hazard either.

On the other hand, you could fall down bare wooden stairs too and that would be much more dangerous.

That's true. It's a bit like the thing of riding a motorcycle with a full face helmet or an open face.

You have far better visibility/head mobility with an open face and it eliminates the goldfish effect and enables you to look behind you properly and swiftly, but if you DO fall off, you'll possibly end up far worse off due to not having the chin protection.
In the same way falling on wood is always likely to result in worse injury. And if it's heavily varnished then of course it will be slippery in socks or anything else.

I think with our old stairs the carpet was hessian backed so it didn't hug the nosing very well. You can imagine the circumference of the 'turning circle' grows larger with the more, or thicker, layers you have wrapped around the nosing. So you end up with quite a large part of the tread being curved as the carpet goes over the lip of the tread.

This was the problem I think - when I stood on a tread I was standing on a curve, and it was very easy then for my foot to slip off it. When you have the bare wood it is totally flat to the edge, well maybe an inch of curved bullnose. Carpet if it is fairly thick will add a couple of inches to the curved section.

Bit like this diagram but the carpet doesn't go in a right angle - it just curves round the edge and usually sticks up a bit, creating an air pocket.

I love carpet You probably won't be allowed wood upstairs too noisy. There are some beautiful carpets now and natural floor coverings in lots of colours.

If a stair carpet sticks up at the edge of the step then yes that is dangerous but it means the carpet has been badly fitted. There shouldn't be any sticking up at all. Our stair carpet is fully flat across the top of the step (yes it does add thickness to the nosing as you say but you get used to that pretty quickly, you just learn to take a slightly larger step out iyswim).

painted/varnished stairs with stair runner sounds lovely - I'd like to do that some day in our house. from what I've seen of stair runners they seem to hug the steps tighter than a full carpet, not sure why, perhaps thinner underlay is used? Anyway sounds like you would prefer that effect.

I certainly wouldn't put lino or marmoleum on stairs. I think the only options for stairs are the bare wood or carpet of some kind. I'd say not sisal, it's a total bugger to clean if anything drops on it.

For your bedrooms I'd probably be inclined to stick with the bare boards and get some large rugs. eg large cotton rugs are cheap and washable and can be changed if you get sick of them or they get stained.

Thank you - Noddy what do you most often recommend for stairs?

Minipie, I think you're right, it can be that it is badly fitted. And it has to be the right thickness and backing.

Perhaps runners don't normally have underlay? Some are just thick cloth like sacking sort of material or deck chair canvas. In which case it will still be noisy won't it. Oh dear.

I might just have to get a hard wearing carpet and suck it up in terms of slipperyness, etc etc.

If you want the look of wood but noise reduction I would go for a runner with rods which holds it firmly and stops that bullnose effect.

Just an idea for storing shoes in a hall with limited space.

We have a mixture of these wood and peg for DPs and trainers and these for heels .

I don't know whether runners have underlay or not but even if not, a runner would still be about a million times quieter than bare wood.

yy noddy the rods would hold the runner, maybe that's why I think of runners as fitting more tightly.

Thank you so much everyone. I think I've decided on a runner for the stairs and whatever looks Ok for the landing...maybe even carpet...

Those pegs are an excellent idea!