Already-moms and/or home deco experts - help a crazy lady out

Trampslikeus · December 2014

We bought a house a little over a year ago that had been empty for about 6 months, and didn't seem to be cleaned very often even when it was inhabited.

There are beautiful oak floors downstairs, but carpets on the stairs, and the entire upstairs (over plywood, sadly, no happy oak surprises underneath).   The carpets are nasty, some funky pink but not quite pink, maybe faded, maybe kind of beige, god only knows terrible color, plus stains. We had them professionally cleaned when we moved in, but that didn't really help.   The bigger problem, beyond the cosmetic yuck, is that either the carpets or the padding underneath seems to be deteriorating. No matter how often I vacuum, the canister is filled after 3 or 4 passes with gray dust. There's no way that much dust is accumulating from the air or even the cats - its coming UP from the carpets.

But thats where the baby is going to be spending most of his or her time, and its not healthy or clean.   We had saved up to replace all of it with oak to match downstairs in plenty of time before Cletus gets here, but SURPRISE! we needed to replace our roof last month instead, and demolished the savings account. We won't be able to afford 600 sq ft of oak flooring and another 100 or so for the stairs before June. But seeing as one of the rooms involved is going to be the nursery, it needs to be dealt with.

Our options now are to replace the old carpet with nicer carpet, or to replace it with engineered hardwood or bamboo flooring that won't quite match the downstairs.

STMs, Will I even want hard surface floors once I have a squirmer/crawler or will I be grateful for soft carpets?
Have any of you had flooring done with the engineered or bamboo? How would you say it compares, in real life, to hardwood?
Will it look funky if two different hard surface floors meet each other at the bottom of the stairs?
(if you have pictures of either of the above, I'd love to see)

I keep reading reviews but they are SO all over the place its hard to get any kind of useful information. Husband says I'm the boss and to just make a decision. Decisions are haaaaard guys.   Halp.

mrsfillier · December 2014

i had bamboo and hated it. its hard and dosnt scratch easily but once it does its so visible.
personally i think you shoukd wait and save up to get the matching hardwood. carpets hold so much crap and it really effects air quality. My caroets are only a year old and i fill my Dyson canister every single time i vacuum, which is daily or at the worst every other day. All the dust and dirt just gets trapped in it.

walshbunnie · December 2014

I would find a nice looking, inexpensive carpeting for the upstairs and match hardwoods later on. I'm a realtor and my husband remodels houses, we have a great flooring store here that always has some type of good carpet they bought on close out so you should be able to do some searching wherever you are and find a deal. As for the baby, our house is all hardwoods expect for the master with lots of area rugs and was fine for baby and toddler stage. Good luck!

tiffbot1985 · December 2014

I don't really have decor advice, but as of right now our entire main floor (which is where we spend most of our time, though I've been slowly making a playroom in the basement which is all carpeted) is laminate or linoleum. When DS was a baby we had a lot of blankets on the floor (and eventually bought one of those alphabet playmate) when he was just laying and playing on his back or tummy which helped, but really in the end doesn't seem bothered by the fact we don't have carpet up here since he doesn't know any different anyway, and neither do we. Eventually I think we would like to carpet the living room, we just have some other stuff we want to do first.

Oh, also with constant spills/cheerios that appear everywhere, sweeping is often but super easy.

Now that he's a bit older and notices the difference, he definitely has fun at both of his grandparents practicing somersaults on carpeted areas, haha.

Trampslikeus · December 2014

@walshbunnie - thank you, really helpful to hear from a realtor. Its going to be really painful to spend 2k on carpets and then rip them up in a couple of years though

Do you think its worth it for the resale value? We have an 8 year plan for this house - we don't love the public schools in this town so we want to move before kiddos hit the age where it would be really hard for them to start at a new school.

willowprincess · December 2014

I wouldn't do carpet. I love having hardwood floors with kids. Clean up is so easy which is huge with kids. No carpet stains, no trapped dust or other things, really just super easy. And my kids have never seemed bothered by the fact that it is harder than carpet.

Ladymouse · December 2014

Can you do laminate that looks like wood? Laminate is cheaper than wood and is easier to install.

My house is half and half laminate and carpet. Wood/laminate is easy to clean, but needs to be cleaned more often for my tastes (daily). Carpet is harder to clean spills out of, is less terrifying in newborn days, and doesn't need to be vacuumed as often as wood needs to be swept. I agree with an inexpensive carpet for bedrooms and stairs.

TheNewMrsY · December 2014

I just wanted to jump in to say don't be afraid of hard wood and baby. We have hard wood on the main level of the house; upstairs and downstairs are carpeted. We would loooove to replace the carpets. Carpets are gross! Just have area rugs as needed

(sorry about having to replace the roof. Homeownership is haaaaard.)

Emilywooddesign · December 2014

I'm an interior designer- i would match the hardwood as best I could with the existing oak or stain the oak the same as the new hardwood. Do not have mismatched wood floor- ever. Engineered hardwood is almost as good as real hardwood but I don't like bamboo, It's very hard and I don't like the grain. If you want to go the carpet route I would spend the money on something good quality that's 100% wool but stay away from viscose because it's impossible to clean, it's a waste of money to put something cheap in for the meantime only to be ripped out. Hope this helps

Nikelizabeth · December 2014

I would put a new carpet down, for now. I know matching floors would look gorgeous, but carpet is so much easier with a baby. When I had my son we had a house that had carpet in the bedrooms and tile in the main living areas. It was so nice to go in the bedrooms and just let him lay down and play and roll around. When he was in the main living area on the tile I had to lay down a bunch of blankets to make it cushioned well and he was always rolling off and bunching them up. It was a pain and it always looked messy. We didn't allow shoes in the carpeted rooms so they were always clean.

holliberry28 · December 2014

I think putting in engineered hardwood makes the most sense for you. And it's much easier to replace area rugs than ripping out carpet. I'm going through the same thing as you, as we are closing on an apartment on the 17th. Need to put flooring over cement and have yet to settle on anything.

walshbunnie · December 2014

If you can afford an engineered hardwood and stain the existing hardwoods to match I would go that route on an 8 year plan. No one likes to hear it but any carpet that is more than a few years old (and in excellent condition) would be viewed as needing to be replaced by a future buyer

katier29 · December 2014

We pulled up our old carpet and laid down the wood ourselves, our local hardware store had a day class that you can take that teaches you how to do it yourself and it was super cheap! The wood isn't real but cleans up nicely and only took about 14 hours to do two rooms. It wasn't real expensive either, it's like a peel and stick tile like, I would look into those options. We plan to put down a rug in our nursery to help cushion baby's falls as they get older.

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