I have serious issues with wall-to-wall carpet. They’re gross. I understand why people like it-- it’s soft, it feels nice to walk on; there are few things in the world more pleasurable than walking around in bare feet on fresh, brand new carpet.
That being said, here’s my problem: you can never really clean a carpet to my personal satisfaction. The older the nastier. I don’t care that you have a recurring monthly reservation on a Rug Doctor. I don’t care how often you vacuum. Everything that’s ever been spilled on it, every dirty step that’s ever walked across it, every time your pet/baby has pissed/shit/vomited on it, that’s still in there. There’s a pad underneath there. How do you ever clean that?! You’re never going to really get that up.
I’m not a verminophobe; I’m not a clean freak. But that shit is gross, yo.
I can’t believe people would actually live in such a place. It’s like living in a museum. Do you wear your shoes all the time in the house (or at least socks)? It just seems like it would get pretty uncomfortable / cold walking around a hard-floored house.
How much time do you really spend walking around your house? I come home from work, I take my shoes off, I plop down on the couch. Occasionally I’ll get up, walk to the kitchen for a beer, then go right back to the couch. It’s wood; it’s not cold marble or linoleum.
I pulled up our old carpet in our last house, too, and gross is the right word. It’s astonishing how much better your house smells as soon as the carpet is out. Our whole house has laminate upstairs and painted concrete downstairs now, and I love it. I wear house shoes in the house all the time, and we have area rugs; I don’t feel a lack here.
Carpeted floors can stay reasonably clean, in a house where no one wears their shoes inside, there are no pets, and spills are immediately taken care of. In short, not in my house. Our floors were carpeted when we bought the place – oak flooring underneath, in every room. I’d love to have the carpet removed but my husband won’t go for it. He thinks he’d slip and fall because the floors would be too slick. :dubious:
Another reason to keep the carpet is that it gives the puppy some traction when she runs. It’d be fun to watch her try running on bare floors, but she’d probably break a leg.
They get used to it pretty quickly. It is kind of fun to watch them initially do the cartoon run, though.
I’m with the OP. I have kids, a dog, and a cat and would never consider having carpet in the main living areas or the bedrooms again. I’ve cleaned up enough spills, muddy footprints, and various sundry bodily fluids to be eternally grateful we have hardwood throughout. We have area rugs in the kids’ rooms, and we replace them every so often because they get too gross.
When we moved into our new house, we had new carpeting throughout - except for the bathrooms and the kitchen.
Even with just the two of us, and constant cleaning and vacuuming, it started to show wear pretty quickly.
Found a great sale at a store. Had the entire house done.
We now have ALL laminate wood floor, tile stairs and entryway and one single carpet under the coffee table in the living room.
We have our little Roomba who does all the vacuuming now, and only about once a month or so, we go over it with a damp mop/floor cleaner.
Our floors look like we had them installed last week - nary a scratch or nick or stain anywhere.
Smartest thing we have ever done.
Even our appraiser a few years ago stepped into the house, saw the floors and said, “I don’t know what you guys paid, but you really increased the value of your house with that!”
Now we don’t care if you come into the house with 3 inches of mud on your shoes and trudge through the place…we can clean it up in seconds.
Socks in the winter or bare feet in the summer, no complaints on our side as we walk around.
Although most of you won’t be persuaded, I second the notion that living on tile or wood feels cold and the echo noise drives me nuts. I like carpet and bare feet.
Carpet in bathrooms is unaccountably popular in England. (Not in my house, though.) For the full horror, be sure to have a U-shaped shagpile rug around the base of the crapper to soak up those stray droplets. :eek:
Carpet in the rest of the house, I don’t think is gross. In heavily trafficked areas like the hallway, and areas subject to spills like the dining room, I prefer a hard floor, but in a bedroom I want nice soft carpet to step out onto. Personally I think having pets in the house is far more gross than having carpet, but I think I’ll forever be in a minority on this board in that respect.
Currently we have carpet in most rooms. The carpet in the hallway is decidedly past its best, and will be replaced by tile that will run through into the kitchen (which currently has vinyl). The thing I don’t like about tile is the cold, so we’ll have underfloor heating. (We just redid our bathroom and fitted underfloor heating, and it’s so worth the money )
I have serious allergies to dust and mold, and have found that carpet is just not possible for me to live with. When I moved in with my husband (OMG!!! That was 13 years ago!) he had one room with a room-sized piece of carpet – not real wall-to-wall, but one of those large pieces they sell to students. It had only been there two years and he had vacuumed regularly. He had two cats, but otherwise was solely responsible for soiling his own home. He’s not especially dirty. I cleaned it once with a steam-cleaner, then shortly afterwards just pulled the whole thing up… unbelievably gross. When I got the lecture on carpet from my allergist later, it was not hard to convince me to ditch the stuff for life.
In th house we now own, we have mostly wood floors with area rugs that are either machine-washable (like the bathroom) or that get vacuumed regularly the normal way, plus upside-down every few weeks, plus shaken outside twice a year or so. One room has cork flooring, which is great stuff, BTW. I don’t find the floor situation cold or clinical in the least. Incidentally, the couch and futon both have washable covers and we wash the curtains a few times a year too.
The house I grew up in had carpet in every single room, including both bathrooms and the kitchen, except the living-room, which had wood parquet tile. My parents kept a clean house, but I know what we did to those carpets. Toilets backed up… kids barfed… several times the whole downstairs flooded when the laundry drain got blocked. It’s no wonder I was constantly sick with allergies, bronchitis, etc.
We had carpeting down the stairs and in the living/dining areas. I was never crazy about it, and when the water heater sprung a leak and ruined it, I wasn’t sad to see it go. The place looks (and smells) a lot better with hardwood instead of carpet.
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