Hardwood in bedroom?

[lmh2402]

our house is all hardwood except for kitchen, bathrooms and mudroom.

i/we strongly prefer hardwood. when we were looking at homes, unless we knew there were hardwood floors underneath any existing carpet, the home moved way to the bottom of our list. and our realtor said, at least in our area, that most buyers were looking for hardwood over carpet in most rooms

[essnce629]

We have hardwood in our master bedroom with carpet in the 3 small bedrooms. I LOVE the hardwood in our bedroom and HATE the carpet in the kids' rooms! The carpet is always getting dirty and spotted even though we don't wear shoes in the house and we have our own carpet cleaner machine. Every time I clean the carpets myself I'm disgusted at what comes out-- tons of sand, sludge, and the water is almost black even after cleaning the carpets 3 months prior. Hardwood just seems so much cleaner to me and even with a cheap canister vacuum I can quickly clean it up. I can't wait till we can rip out all the carpet one day and just have all hardwood.

[Gracemom]

We would like to put hardwoods upstairs, but do you put it on the stairs too? Currently, our stairs are carpet. I'm worried that hardwood stairs would be too loud and too slick and our kids would slip and fall (they are a bit clumsy). Also, putting hardwood on stairs is expensive. Thoughts? (sorry to highjack)

[Canna]

We have hardwood everywhere in the house including the kitchen. Pretty typical of 1920s homes in our area. Have to say, I love it. Hardwood in bedrooms or just about anywhere is awesome. I grew up in Texas with wall-to-wall carpet and now it just seems kind of icky to me.

ETA for PP: We do have a carpet runner that goes up the middle of stairs. There is wood visible on the edges of each step. It does make the stairs safer I think. Our has an oriental-type pattern.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I dislike hardwood in the bedroom- cold and hard. I want a plush retreat. We have hardwoods in many rooms of my house but I just prefer carpet upstairs. Probably stems from my childhood- all of my better off friends had carpet and I had hardwoods. My mom eventually bought me a carpet remnant with no padding to cover the floor. It wasn't the same. So, I guess I just have deep seeded personal issues. Hardwoods seem to be the winner.

[crl]

Originally Posted by Gracemom

We would like to put hardwoods upstairs, but do you put it on the stairs too? Currently, our stairs are carpet. I'm worried that hardwood stairs would be too loud and too slick and our kids would slip and fall (they are a bit clumsy). Also, putting hardwood on stairs is expensive. Thoughts? (sorry to highjack)

All of our places with hardwoods have had hardwood stairs. I have not been bothered by the noise. Of course the houses we owned with hardwood also had plaster walls, which does help considerably with noise. Neither of my kids has fallen (although dh fell on my parents' hard wood stairs wearing socks without shoes once--the kids are barefoot in the house partly to prevent falls).

If you have hardwood downstairs and put it upstairs, I would definitely bite the bullet on cost and do the stairs too. I think it makes a big difference in looks and would be a negative for resale if only the stairs are carpet.

Catherine

[vludmilla]

Our house is all hardwood flooring, including the stairs and we love it. It seems that most people in this area prefer hardwood floors throughout the house.

[daniele_ut]

We live in a rambler with a finished basement. The main level of our house has tile in the kitchen and bathroom, hardwood in 3 bedrooms and carpet in the master. The master was an addition and those owners had covered the hardwood with wall to wall carpet so they put carpet in the addition too. When we bought the house there were 4 different kinds of carpet on the main level. We ripped it out immediately and refinished the floors. My only regret is that we didn't put hardwood in the master when we did the rest.

I think the key is consistency. There are plenty of homes here that have hardwood in the public areas of the house and then carpet in the bedrooms - ALL of the bedrooms. If you want to put hardwood in one bedroom, you should put it in all the bedrooms.

[sdoyle]

Originally Posted by Gracemom

We would like to put hardwoods upstairs, but do you put it on the stairs too? Currently, our stairs are carpet. I'm worried that hardwood stairs would be too loud and too slick and our kids would slip and fall (they are a bit clumsy). Also, putting hardwood on stairs is expensive. Thoughts? (sorry to highjack)

We only have hardwood floors in our current house and actually think they are much less slick than my parent's carpeted ones. If I were putting hardwoods upstairs, I would definitely do the steps too.

Stacy

[specialp]

Originally Posted by Gracemom

We would like to put hardwoods upstairs, but do you put it on the stairs too? Currently, our stairs are carpet. I'm worried that hardwood stairs would be too loud and too slick and our kids would slip and fall (they are a bit clumsy). Also, putting hardwood on stairs is expensive. Thoughts? (sorry to highjack)

It can depend on the layout. I prefer stairs to be HW period. But if you have mixed flooring on different levels, I prefer to the stairs to match the main level. My house is HW 1st floor, HW stairs, and carpet upstairs. I liked this house over 2 others in the same neighborhood b/c those had carpeted stairs and, other than the fact that carpeted stairs are a pain to steam clean and look worn and dirty quicker than the rest, it looked odd to walk into a HW foyer, surrounded by all HW on the main floor in an open concept house, and have a sea of w-t-w carpeted stairs (not a runner, which I'm fine with) coming down in the middle of it.