Solid bamboo flooring bedrooms? With carpet on stair/landing/hall

[Lelivre]

Last summer we installed strand woven natural bamboo throughout our downstairs.

I had planned to carpet upstairs for comfort, noise etc.

However...after a D&V bug last week (whole family, small children, it got everywhere) I started to think about having carpet on the stair landing and corridor. And maybe white bamboo in the bedrooms (or natural) what do you think?

I also have a concern regarding mold (I have a sensitivity and think my children may, and bamboo is mould resistant).

Any thoughts welcome. I don't want to get this wrong!

White bamboo

What we have downstairs

Watching with interest. Will you be taking other steps to ensure sound insulation?

WE have bamboo downstairs (and I love it) but I would be hesitant about putting it upstairs in the bedrooms. I have 3 very slim, not-as-tall-as-their-peers children, but they already sound like baby elephants upstairs (carpeted). I can see where you are coming from from a cleanliness / hygiene point of view, but I think it could be very noisy.

Namechange - I hear you and I have two much taller and heavier than their peers kids!

Ftm I'm hearing that cork reduces by 21db that's as far as I have got. I would use a lot of rugs for comfort. But yes the noise...we don't wear our shoes but still.

Sorry I am still unsure of how to spell mold/mould...off to google

Sorry to jump on the thread but how do you find the bamboo flooring, we may well go for it downstairs. Oak we found in our old house couldn't take much abuse!

Madondedog - it is very hardwearing. Especially the strand woven with Matt lacquer. That's why we have it. I don't love the look particularly! I prefer the vertical but that's softer. I think the strand woven it'harder than any hard wood.

I have just ordered samples from 'simply bamboo' to potentially put it upstairs. They have the best prices. I ordered our downstairs bamboo from the bamboo flooring company because I thought the sample they supplied was the lightest. But I couldn't recommend them to anyone and would certainly not deal with them again. We had a few problems and the way they dealt with us post sale was pretty poor. But order some samples and try and vandalise them, you will find the strandwoven stuff is extraordinarily tough.

Lelivre thanks for the reply. Good to know you've found it tough

I've ordered some samples from a website, not sure which one I just remember they were free samples so I thought "why not". I went for strand woven samples too, hoping it will be a good alternative to having tiles in the hall and kitchen

I love it. As I said up thread, we have 3 children - complete with wet shoes / stones they bring in / DS is forever kicking a football - and it's been down 6 years nearly in the hall and looks great. We have a lacquered finish which I like.

So pleased to hear more positive feedback, if I can avoid tiles I will be really pleased.

Is it relatively warm underfoot? What type of underlay did you go for? Oh and tongue and groove or uniclic? Sorry I am very excited now

Looking forward to trying to destroy my samples

I've had homes with both carpet and wood in the bedrooms. When we moved into this house and I had a choice I chose carpet

Main issues - feels nicer walking around barefoot on a cold morning!, not slippy, quieter and cosier.

The kids rooms originally had wood and they weren't keen either - rugs put down but constantly moving and being kicked up (in kids rooms due to the kids!)

Wood floor downstairs though and no shoes allowed upstairs

You can get bamboo carpets (I think they are 50%bamboo) too which are supposed to be good but I've never seen in the flesh. Come in standard carpet colours

BYO - this is what I'm afraid of! I do so like my creature comforts too.
My white bamboo sample came it's milky white and sleek and scandi and fab. But yeah not very cosy.

Hmmmm what to do?!

Looked at the bamboo carpet online and not too much about. Seems like a new thing. Great suggestion tho!

Madblonde - it's tough almost like a porcelain tile than a wood but retains a natural warmth. That said if you have a concrete floor I would go mad on insulation or have part underfloor heating. We have a wood subfloor and it's fine but ur kind of had to be as the budget wouldn't stretch to UFH. You would not be disappointed on wear with strand woven plus matte varnish. I would sway you away from the bamboo flooring company as IME they are slick as pre-sale. Post-sale not so much on a number of fronts.

If bamboo carpet is anything like bamboo flannels and socks then it won't last very long. The flannels ans socks are very soft, but wear into holes pretty quickly.

Another reason I don't like hard floors is the dust bunnies that accumulate.

My samples from simply bamboo came today (very excited). Had a sample tile too and I've been having fun studying the impact of dropping various things onto both of them to test them out.

We have suspended floors so I think insulation would be ok. What underlay do people recommend?

I also installed bamboo flooring downstairs last year (from Simply bamboo, dar natural color which they describe as similar to light oak, uniclic type). Ours is concrete underfloor and the underlay we used was silverish type from ebay.

We have carpets upstairs and I also was considering bamboo flooring in bedrooms. At least in one. Although I much, much prefer hard flooring, I could not bring up myself to lose the warmth and comfort of the carpet. Moreover, I have two boisterous boys who make lots of noise. So I dropped the idea of bamboo upstairs... for now.

(One more reason is that people in UK prefer carpet in bedrooms and we may sell the house at some point).

My bamboo floor in the pic.

Catbasilio - floor looks great! I am still mulling over what to do about the bedrooms and in the meantime I'm getting all of upstairs measures by the carpet fitter. I'm totally in two minds

Catsbasilio it looks amazing, I think we've made a decision and we're going to go for bamboo over most of downstairs, its just whether we go for it in the downstairs bedrooms or have carpet in there.

Might come down to a cost based decision I think

Just to update I think after all of that we are going for carpet ha! I keep getting let down by carpet, the bamboo still looked good after 10 yrs in our last place and the carpets we replaced twice and they looked like they needed doing again when we left! So I hope this is the right call, we can't seem to resist the cosiness of the carpet in bedrooms.