Hard floors versus carpets

Throughout our apartment is laminate flooring a light pine colour in hall/lounge and bathroom and white laminate in the bedroom and dressing room,I can go through the whole lot in 10mins with my dry mop of a morning after a quick spritz of floor cleaner here & there keeps it good looks always,I'm lucky that we don't have lots of traffic through as we did when we had the big family house when bikes/skate boards and prams pushed or ridden through those where the days .

I have ceramic tiles in hall, downstairs loo and bathroom upstairs. Vinyl in the kitchen and laminate downstairs with a large rug in the living room area. Upstairs there is a lighter laminate everywhere with a rug either side of the bed in the main bedroom for warmth under foot. I would never return to carpets- laminate is so much easier to clean and it is easy to see dust whereas on a carpet that would never be seen. I have 3 rugs on the upstairs hallway and Tara my cat loves, in a mad moment, sliding from one end to another and she and a rug end up in the bathroom.

Jane I didn't know it was possible to mix paint with varnish! What a fabulous tip. Thank you.

You've all been SO helpful, brought up ideas,thoughts, problems and given me lots to think about, rather feel that I'm leaning towards hard floors. Karndean seems good, so I shall investigate that a bit more. We have a wood burning stove and already have a rug in front of that. I was concerned about the swivel chair that we use with the computer in the dining room so would possibly need a rug under that. Thank you all for your help and ideas

Agus I have been doing it for years, matching up skirting boards to quarry tiles to make the room look bigger, that sort of thing. Just make a not of what ratio you have used, doing a sample. I have an old metal dessertspoon, so start off mixing say, 2 spoons varnish to 1 of paint. Then I paint it on a piece of the nearest fabric I can find of the nearest colour and see how it looks, then adjust until it is right. Then I use an old measuring jug to measure out the larger quantities in the right ratios, and hang on to big old plastic paint pots to do the mixing. For that I use my grandmother's old electric whisk!

If you just want a colour wash on some pine, 6 parts varnish to 1 part paint is good.

What useful tips, janerowena. Do you hire yourself out as an interior decorator?

We have grey tiles in our bathroom, vinyl in the other and the downstairs loo. DH's study is also vinyl. Tiles in the kitchen and utility.

Beige carpet with multi coloured flecks everywhere else!

Although our house is Victorian, it has mostly concrete floors so we have no opportunity to have bare floor boards but, as it is fairly open plan, I imagine it would be quite cold.

In terms of keeping it clean, carpet nowadays is easily spot cleaned. I nearly had a fit when I came home to find my cleaner using the kitchen (non bleach containing) squirty cleaner on the (mostly) wool carpet and wondered how to explain that to the insurance company. It worked a treat.

I have done colour wash before Jane but never thought of your varnish mix which is very useful as sometimes I cannot find the shade I want for skirtings..or other woods. I have always had to do the usual two coats of mixed colour followed by a coat of varnish

Thanks also for your mixing techniques. I have taken a note for future reference.

DS2 has stripped floorboards in sitting room, dining room and hall. They are old and there are large gaps between the boards. We would like to fill the gaps but don't know what to use or how to go about it. Any advice?

Oops, just noticed you have also used varnish in a colour wash. If I had only known about it back in the 80's when I first discovered how to,do it .

It started because I am lazy Agus! Why do more coats than necessary? Also, I get a better finish. And I once looked for something to coat the side panels of a bath with and was appalled at the price, and couldn't get it in a colour that I wanted.

I have experience with both carpets and hardwood floor. I agree with you one hundred percent that carpets are comfy and I love them too, but proper maintenance is necessary to avoid health problems for both family and pets. Any flooring, for that matter, needs some amount of care to be preserved. Look at some I saw about floor tips and carpet cleaning here- chemdrycentralsydney.controlzoneonline.com.au/
Hope this is helpful.

This is an ad I presume?!

Hard floors all the time. The only carpet in our house is on the stairs. I would say buy the best quality laminate of faux wood that you can afford. And buy Tiles for bathroom and kitchen floors. The other beauty of hard floors is that you can ring the changes very economically with rugs. I have seven grandkids and after they have eaten - well you know what I mean.

Darling daughter has laminate downstairs with tiles in the kitchen.
I don't like it. I'm a carpet person, it's softer when I fall. I do have tiles in the kitchen.

I have carpet all over the house except bathrooms and kitchen - bathrooms have porcelain tiles (less that 0.5% water absorption rate and they are very durable) and the kitchen floor is quarry-tiled.

I've often thought of wooden flooring throughout (I dislike laminate) but each time I see it, the house it's in just looks bare - so I stick with the carpeting (my son's wife insisted on laminate throughout and after a year or so, they took it all up and bought carpet instead!).

rubsong

We would like to fill the gaps but don't know what to use or how to go about it. Any advice?

I saw a programme once with people who had this problem and they laid string/thin rope in the gaps before varnishing - it looked quite good afterwards. Another was to use the sawdust (or whatever they call it that is left after the sanding procedure) and mixed that with some of varnish to quite a thick consistency and that was also put into the gaps.

I have just looked it up and found a link to something similar: www.sandedfloors.co.uk/gap%20film.info.htm

and just found this on another forum:

As a Joiner, there are a number of ways to fill the gaps, my prefered method would be to use wooden fillet pieces if the gap is over 2-3mm, if it is less I would suggest sanding the floor and keeping the fine sanding dust and mix with some pva glue to form a paste like substance, then fill the gaps with this, however anything over 3mm and it will not look to good! If you want any further advice PM me!

Carpets are so 'out' in Germany I am the only one who has one in the living room. All the rest of the house downstairs is tiled and was when we bought it new in the 70s. We have one bedroom with an oiled wooden floor and the other two are carpeted. I think my house is cosier than my neighbours' houses and actually parquet flooring collects fluff and I think it needs more care than a good carpet.
Now our cat has died we are considering yet again what to do in the living room and have decided to have carpet again.
Both daughters have wooden floors but covered with large carpets. Just wood looks very bare in my opinion and is loud and cold.

We haven't got any carpets in our house at all. Even the stairs are just wooden. The hall and kitchen diner, which are open plan have amtico which looks just like wood but can cope with heavy traffic as you walk through to go to the garden so constant trails of mud etc. in the sitting room we have an oak floor which is gorgeous. A lovely big rug keeps it cosy and you can move it around if one bit gets worn. Bedrooms have sanded floorboards with rugs. I wouldn't go back to fitted carpets as they get so mucky round the edges and you can never clean them properly. Fitted carpets seem a bit old fashioned now.

We have dogs , so have kardean flooring that looks like wood in hallways kitchen-diner and garden room, but have carpets in bedroom on stairs and the lounge - but will get rid of it in lounge asap as it gets full of dog hair and smells !

We have wood or laminate through out our very old house but also lots and lots of rugs. Best of both worlds really.

Old house with new wood floors in hall/loo/kitchen/diner and back room. Carpet in front room/stairs and bedrooms. Tiles in bathroom & wet room!

Both have pros and cons! Wet room has underfloor heating aahh! bathroom does not brr!

We have rugs on the wooden floors in the back room/hall but not in the kitchen/diner and that works well re clean/cosy balance!
In a way I wish I had had the money for the wooden floors in the bedrooms too ..dust and sneezing etc might be reduced!

Go with what you fancy and purse allows!

I think that carpets make the room look warmer and cozier. So, before you say "goodbye" to yours, why don't you try to give them a new life. Do you know that vacuum cleaning is not enough to keep a carpet tidy. Why don't you hire a professional cleaning company to take care of yours. You'll be amazed by the final result!

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