Carpet or wood sitting room?

[maggieryan]

Just about to move into new house. Its an period house and sitting room is quite big. There's a rotton carpet on it and I want to rip it up and put wooden floors down. Husband reckons carpet because he said it will be freezing in winter. I think wood because ive 3 young kids that are v.messy(like me) so wood makes sense. Any ideas please?

I agree with you. Carpet and kids isn't a great combination. You could always get a (replaceable) rug to make it a bit warmer in winter.

We have carpet. We found it to be just too cold with floorboards, even with rugs (old house).

I don't think wood is cold in the way floorboards are though - you have a bit of insulation, and it's not all drafty.

We replaced parquet with carpet because it was too cold. We seem to end up sitting on the floor a lot of the time though. I think wood for dining room or playroom, but carpet in the main living room.

We have a dog so floorboards makes sense for us. I don't find the floor cold and ours are stripped floorboards. We painted them white. Looks lovely and was cheap as chips!

Carpet - we've got a very old house, it would be cold with wooden floors. Depends if you're going to be eating/doing painting/playdough in there. We do all the messy stuff in the kitchen/dining room (slate floors).

Underfloor heating and wood. Or carpet. Not wood floor alone.

I'd like to give you a perspective you might not have thought of. Is your home detached or semi-detatched or terraced? If it is terraced in some way, please think about your neighbours. We have a young family next door to us. They moved in and ripped up all the carpets. We can now hear every pounding move from those kids, thundering running their way through the house. They all all under 5, but you would be very surprised how much noise it makes. Furthermore, they have trikes that they ride indoors too, which causes even more nuisance noise for the neighbours. I have not yet mustered up the courage to bring this to my neighbour's attention. They are such nice people otherwise, but their careless thoughtlessness of how noise travels and disrupts us really is breathtaking sometimes.

Be a good neighbour and please go with underlay and carpet.

Carpet with a massive rug on it here. (On second in 4 years despite regular cleaning.)

We've had wood floors at our last three houses (all large, old, period properties) and have kept things cosy with plenty of wool rugs. Current house has original parquet in two of the receptions and it would be cold if it weren't for the rugs and at our last house we laid engineered oak which was definitely not cold but we did have a 16kw wood burner. We have two dogs so wood suits us (and them) best!

Two out of three of these houses were detached (including the current one) and the other had 18" thick stone walls with added insulation between us and the only attached property although that stood empty for the three years we were there anyway so no issues with noise travelling next door. When we owned a terraced house we had carpet and thick underlay throughout.

not trying to pick a fight but where draw the line dolly? sounds like you're trying to tell OP what to do. Carpets are gross, wood or hard flooring is hygienic than carpet especially with a young family.

Id go for wood with a large rug.

Wood with rugs here too, 4 messy dc's & 2 clumsy grown ups! If you have a big disaster on your rug that can't be cleaned you can replace it. Carpet you be stuck with it or more expensive to replace.
I am currently having the same dilemma re hallway (old house)I'm thinking carpet because I feel like wood will make it a bit draughty and echoey and noisy when I'm trying to sneak off to work at 6 without waking dc's up!

We've just had the same dilemma (with DC1 on the way) and have opted for floorboards stained white (Osmo products are fabulous). The big difference is that we've insulated the floorboards underneath with Celotex. It's a bit of a faff but it's so worth it as it's not cold underfoot, there are no draughts and the room is much, much warmer.

I dislike carpet and will always recommend hard floors, with underlay, if possible.

We were excited to have a nice wood veneer laminate floor when we moved here, only to find we needed to rip it up to do a rewire.

And then couldn't afford to replace it so had to have carpet, which with a toddler is awful.

It's warmer and quieter but it is difficult to keep looking nice.

If you do get carpet, get the sort you can bleach. A good quality polypropylene twist.

If you can though get wood, and with insulated board under it it won't be toooo noisy. (we have downstairs neighbour too which we had to consider!)

pinechesterdrawers I am simply raising a point that the OP might not have thought of. Share living situations (i.e.: terraced, semi-detached or converted homes) mean that we should all be good neighbours and think about how our actions affect those living in close proximity. Why would you not consider this? I bet you'd expect your neighbours to consider you. Common sense really. The fact is young children create lots of noise and hardwood flooring means that noise carries far further than you realise. Shame that I even have to point this out.

I don't think Dolly was trying to tell OP what to do in the slightest. It's a perfectly valid point. I wish someone had made it to our upstairs neighbours before they stripped all the carpets out! Drove us batty suddenly being woken at 5am every morning when they started clomping around. Some flats have conditions in the lease that they must have carpet to reduce the noise for their neighbours. Less of an issue in a house than a flat but it's a reasonable thing for people in non-detached houses to consider.