That would explain the state of the floor in the toilet of my favourite whisky bar. Many of the regulars are Brits who grew up with such a rug and don’t notice when their aim isn’t true.
The fact that if you have any allergies, or respiratory issues, the very first suggestion is that you remove the carpeting from your home, tells me everything I need to know about how clean carpets are and what they are contributing to the quality of your home environment.
I’m with the OP, gross. Give me hard surface any day.
I adore the warmth of clean wood under bare feet, maybe it’s all the time I spent in Asia.
When we bought our home the carpeting had been down for 40 yrs and the woman who we bought from tried to convince me it was still good! Um, no. It was the very first thing we tackled, ripping up all of the carpeting.
Beneath that carpeting, in the entry and livingroom, were beautiful inlaid hardwood floors. With cherrywood borders and lovely corner details - magnificent. Whatever possessed them to cover these floors, I can’t imagine, but I’m glad they did, it saved them from 40 yrs of wear and now I get to enjoy them.
When we moved into our house we had our pick of carpet and got a lovely gold sculptured shag. You cannot believe how gross it got after a few short years. All worn down and grubby, matted, smelly. Plus two warring indoor cats marking their territory. We had professional rug cleaners come and they left us with a soaking wet carpet that smelled even WORSE than before they came. Nothing to do but rip it all out. One of the high points of my entire life, along with marriage and childbirth, was the day the last hardwood plank was nailed down on the now carpetless floors. I love my hardwood floors beyond measuring. They look beautiful and clean up in a flash. It was the best thing we ever did to the house. As for cold floors - that’s why they invented area rugs. And socks. (After we had the hardwood floor put down, in the fall when it got colder I would open the windows to air the place out and the wood would contract or expand, making sounds as loud as gunshots! The cat would be sleeping and I swear he leapt three feet straight up in the air when those loud creaks went off.)
You can have my carpet when you pull it from my cold, dead, yet strangely comfy feet! Carpet forever!!!
Nb: I don’t actually have any carpet right now, but I’d really like some in the bedrooms.
I don’t have any carpet in my house either. I had white carpeting in my last house. I liked it, but it was a constant battle to keep clean. And you also gotta wonder about what chemicals the carpet is made of.
Somehow I thought this thread was going to be about feminine grooming.
Chalk me up as another carpet hater. It’s nasty, and I don’t like the way it feels. I’m in Florida, and cool hardwood in the morning and evening is a pleasure to my bare feet. My mom’s house is a farmhouse built in the 1860s with wide, pine plank floors. Those boards, polished by 150 years of foot traffic, are so smooth and soft I would feel like a fool wearing socks or shoes on them.
At least you can toss it into the washing machine and get it clean every so often.
I’m currently renting, so I can’t do anything about our nasty carpet, but hard floors are so much nicer. Leaving carpet on a floor is like wearing one union suit for years and years, never taking it off, occasionally hosing it down. I think of how clean I can get a shirt with spot treatment, and how spot treatment is all a carpet ever gets, and I never want to go barefoot in my own home.
When I’m in charge of my house’s flooring, it will be hard flooring. Cement, wood, laminate, tile, stone, I even like real linoleum, whatever is cheap/easy. Just not wall to wall carpeting.
Amazing. I never even thought about it. Yes, I look wood better - in some rooms. The bathroom has tile, the kitchen has tile, and I’d love the living room to be wood. But bedroom? Carpet. It keeps the house so much warmer, and we live in a cold clime.
If you watch the home makeover shows, you’d think that’s what everyone finds under their carpet! Imagine my disappointment when I discovered stained terrazzo. I put that ugly-ass carpet right back down.
We live full time in a Class A motor home (that’s the kind that looks like a bus) and if you think carpet is gross in a house, it’s even grosser in a motor home.
We took it all out except for the cockpit area and put down laminate. The two dogs and Damncat got used to it pretty quickly.
My wife also reupholstered all of the furniture with Ultraleather Plus (except for her leather recliner).
The coach is much easier to keep clean now.
Whoa, Diver. Maybe you should start a “ask the guy who lives full time in a motor home” thread. And with two dogs and a cat, even!
So did I. I read a few sentences of the OP and thought “wow, I need to get my mind out of the gutter”.
Love carpet! Hate maintaining it. So I have laminate wood though the main floor with carpet in the bedrooms. For some reason, a bedroom without carpet doesn’t seem cozy and inviting to me. The game/utility room has industrial carpet. It’s ugly, but I didn’t want to shell out for laminate there. You’d have a hard time damaging that industrial stuff if you tried, and spills just mop right up.
When we had an incident last year we discovered really nice hardwood floors under cheap brown carpeting in the house we’re renting. There wasn’t even a pad. My Mig sanded off paint and carpet glue
then stained it. It’s so nice not having to vacuum.
Years ago when I worked in home restoration pulling up carpet was the most disgusting task. Leaks caused mold and mildew under pads, pads were nothing but dust after disintegrating over years and years. The smell…you can use all the febreeze or even industrial strength odor removers on carpet but when it’s ripped up the smell jumps right out at you.
I’ll take hardwood over carpet any day. Throw rugs get washed regularly.
Wall to wall carpet is BLEEECHHHY! Especially with multiple pets. I have a Dyson that gets most of the hair and dirt, but with two cats that like to regurgitate on an almost daily basis. . . .
Our new place has hardwood on the first and second floors, but carpeted stairs and bedrooms. Guess what the first thing to be fixed will be?
yeah, it gets dirty. But man it’s great for the acoustics of a room. I have hardwood in the living room. I can’t hardly even stand to be in the room when the kids are all in there and talking at once. It’s awful the way their high voices bounce off every surface. We have carpet in the family room and I’d never put down a hard floor there. Same for my bedroom.
Wood is pretty but it’s cold and it bounces sound around like crazy.
No kidding - carpet is really gross, especially if you have pets. If i wasn’t renting, I’d rip out all of the carpet in my house as soon as I could. We have 4 retired greyhounds (and an occasional foster) so we got a carpet shampooer. They’re all house trained but there is the occasional accident or vomit. It always surprises me how nasty the water looks when I use the shampooer… I can’t imagine what the carpet padding must be like.
I also have a room with ancient brown, orange and tan plaid carpet. Hideous… and who knows how filthy it is.
Our oldest dog has fallen a couple times on the slick faux-wood floor so I have several machine washable grippy-back rugs and runners. They’re not the prettiest rugs but the fact that they’re washable and keep our old-lady-dog on her feet are much more important than looks.
Ewww! I hate wall-to-wall carpet. Seems to me that it became an “upscale” thing in the 50s & 60s. Prior to that, (as well as now days) higher end homes had wood or tile flooring, with area rugs as indicated. My newly built home has porcelain tile only (I live in a very warm to hot climate–use the heat maybe a week a year, total). I would have put in some wood, but as someone else already said, I will always have pets. I have an area rug in the living room, but that’s it. IMHO, wall-to-wall carpet is akin to a Caribbean cruise.:rolleyes: