Help - Karndean/cork/carpet/parquet design palaver in 50's house renovation!

[snowdrop2011]

We are renovating and extending a 50's house and I am in a tizzy about what to choose for all the different floors. The only thing we are keeping is the original parquet flooring in the downstairs hall and living room. I have decided on Karndean in the open plan kitchen/diner. Currently the house is carpeted everywhere else (bathroom included!) and it is all coming up. I have allergies and so don't want carpet in our master bedroom. The ceilings of the master are quite high (over 4m!) and I'm concerned wood will be echoey and cold. I was looking at cork flooring (shaped to look like wood). We also have a toddler and I suppose carpet would be impractical in her room (and who knows she might develop my allergies too??) But then I am stuck on the stairs and upstairs landing. I don't want a completely bare staircase because of the toddler - but wouldn't it look weird to have carpet on the stairs and landing if the bedrooms aren't carpeted? Should I just go for something the same throughout like Karndean or engineered oak or bamboo, and put runners on the stairs and landing? I am assuming cork on the stairs is a crazy idea?! Argh!
Anyhow the general question is, should I be keeping it simple and finding the best halfway house for stairs/landing and bedrooms, or should I mix and match materials according to room appropriateness (in which case I would probably have bamboo + runner on stairs/landing and cork in 2 bedrooms then carpet in the 2 other bedrooms which aren't used very much, which together with the Karndean and parquet floors downstairs sounds like a design nightmare...!)
Advice much appreciated I have been poleaxed by obsessive internet research and have no design bone in my body...

Personally I don't like something different in each room. I mean to say in my last home we had bamboo everywhere. And the very same carpet in the bedrooms. Except for the stairs which was stripped back to wood but exactly stained to the colour of the bamboo.

Our house has karndean throughout all the rooms upstairs and down but carpet on the stairs and landing. It was here when we bought and looks absolutely fine, not odd in slightest.

We are putting in bamboo in all the downstairs rooms, cork in the bedrooms and carpet on the stairs and landing.

I would always have something easy to clean that doesn't get slippery in a bathroom so sheet vinyl or luxury vinyl tiles (Karndean, Amtico, etc.).

As a carpet lover, I like having something warm and soft under my feet in bedrooms and would just say be wary of any hard floor covering in bedrooms because of the noise. Friends have stripped floorboards in theirs - it looks lovely but you can hear every step anyone makes from room to room and it sounds awful if you are in a downstairs room and someone is in the bedroom above. So noisy.

I would never not carpet a wooden staircase because of the racket if they are bare. It makes the whole house sound hollow to me.

We have cork in all our bedrooms, nice Wicanders, not nasty orange tiles. I think it's perfect, comes in a range of colours and it's soft and warm underfoot.

The only place we have carpet is our stairs, it doesn't look odd but I hate hoovering it but I'm not sure that cork is hard wearing enough for stairs.

We are renovating and extending a 60s house and have decided (I think!) on cork in all the bedrooms and upstairs landing. I'm hoping it will be warm underfoot and not noisy (we've lived with bare, gappy floorboards for two years so I can't wait!). We will have rugs in the bedrooms, but I just prefer not to have fitted carpets throughout. Our stairs are open tread so we've kept them as bare wood - but I don't think carpet on the stairs and landing would look odd in your case. We have also kept the original parquet downstairs and are thinking of Marmoleum in the new kitchen diner (when it is finally built!).

Currer we have marmoleum in our kitchen/diner but I wouldn't recommend it because the table and chairs kind of scuff it and leave grubby looking marks.

On the other hand cork is warm and quiet, you'll love it in your bedrooms!

Ah that's interesting Mothership - I might consider something else in the kitchen/diner then... perhaps Karndean.

Thanks so much for everyone's replies. It is very reassuring to know in particular that carpet on stairs and landing wouldn't look odd with bare floors in bedrooms. I think we have decided to go for carpeting the stairs, landing, and the two spare bedrooms, and putting Karndean down in the master and toddler's room. Then the fitter who puts Karndean downstairs can do upstairs as well so in theory I won't have to deal with multiple fitters and go even more crazy!!
(almost immediately after we decided to have on carpet on stairs our toddler, with an extremely full and dirty nappy, bum-shuffled her way downstairs and put smears of poo on almost every step - scream! But anything else just seems hard and horrible. Hooray for carpet cleaner...)