Hard floors versus carpets

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I do think that you really need to be aware of the possible noise when fitting wood/laminate flooring we have wood throughout our apartment except for bedroom and downstairs neighbour will tell anyone she has never heard us moving about,it's because we don't walk about with shoes on we use slippers or light shoes and if we move furniture we lift it not drag it. Also it depends on the quality of the lining you put down prior to laying the flooring if you buy the flimsy stuff you will get the flimsy result,when you live in flats/apartments it should be part of the communial requests to owners as it is in some communities abroad.

The person who stays in the flat above the S.O.'s put down wooden flooring and we hear them walking around all the time. Not only that but they complained about the noise they could hear from another downstars flats telly, which probably wouldn't have been as bad had they still had carpets down.

HollyDaze thank you for help regarding gaps. That will keep us busy for a bit! Maybe once we've done all the other jobs we'll look at it.
Here we have carpet apart from kitchen (cushionfloor) and bathrooms and utility (cork).

A point to consider perhaps. I have a semi detached house and have carpets in living room, dining room and bedrooms. Cushionfloor it the kitchen and bathroom. However, my attached neighbour has wood or laminated floors. They are a couple in their late 50s. Their grown up child has left home. The noise is unbelievable. They never seem to stay still and sounds like they are constantly shifting furniture. They start work early so this noise starts pre 6 a.m. I shudder to think what it would be like to have a family with children and animals next door. There are flats in the area too and there has been so much trouble with residents putting down wood or laminate. I think these floorings are causing so much stress, noise, and neighbour disputes. Maybe something to consider is the effect of your choice of flooring on neighbourly relations.
Sugarpufffairy

I'm planning to have tiles down in my hallway because it gets so dirty with the dog walking through it. I've tried all sorts of runners but they all move around. Both my daughter and the S.O. have tiles in their hallway and they look lovely if you choose the right colour. My kitchen has old terrazzo tiles down which look very dated but the right tiles in the hall will blend in with them [I hope].

There is someone last Thursday with a cleaning company based in OZ.

MindyGunton Thu 21-Aug-14 13:48:38

It might just not be economical to come and clean my carpets from there.

Fusion cleaners Reported as Spam.

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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!

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!

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

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 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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

This is an ad I presume?!

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.

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.

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 .

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?

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.