We live in old houses, so wood fits the motif better. Our current old house already had carpet, so we're living with it until we have time to rip it out and refinish. I do like the warmth of the carpeting, but from a design perspective prefer wood. You can always add wood and use nice throw rugs, orientals to add the warmth.

I like hardwood or cork in all rooms and then add a rug to the bedrooms to soften the room and warm up the floor. Cork is great because it isn't cold and it easily sweeps clean. We ended up putting cork into the kids' bedrooms.

In this house, we have carpeting in the bedrooms and it is so hard for me to keep clean. If you take off your shoes and walk in socks or bare feet, you probably don't have this problem.

We're saving up money so we can replace the carpeting with either hardwood or cork.

I have hardwood in our bedrooms and like it. Easy to keep clean and sweep, I do have a throw rug by the bed. When it gets worn looking, or if I want to change the color scheme or look of the room, it's easy to replace. I wear shoes most of the time but the rest of my family runs around barefoot, in socks, or when it's really cold, in slippers. They have not complained that it's cold. A swiffer picks up any stray dust and small crumbs. I'd prefer to see them on the floor out in front of me rather than have them be hiding in the depths of a carpet--but that's just me. I saved up and recently pulled out the carpet in the living room and replaced it with hardwood. I absolutely love it.

Cj

DH and I are building a one storey house with 3 BR and I wanted carpet in all the BR but DH wanted hardwood in our bedroom and carpet in the other 2. Like the others, I decided I could put area rugs in our bedroom since cleaning hardwood is soooo much easier than carpet!

I saw this and had to post! My wife and I continually argue about this. We have hardwood in the bedrooms and I like it but she doesn't. She doesn't like the hardwood in the mornings (goes barefoot and we keep the house fairly cold at night) and is going to make me put down some rugs.

twotogo is right, hardwood is way easier to keep clean than carpet.

I personally think all carpet is dirty, dust and mite infested and very unhealthy, especially in the bedroom where you sleep all night. You actually spend more time n your bedroom than other rooms, especially if you work. I prefer any hard surface to carpet and only throw and area rugs if they can be washed.

Brutuses, I am with you and if my budget would allow it, I would replace all my wall-to-wall carpets in my home to engineered wood floors or wood laminate.

we have hardwood in bedrooms.

In the winter, we use rugs for warmth. Take them up in the summer for cool, clean floors. cant stand w2w carpeting anymore...

Makes sense HUH? Spend a small bloody fortune putting HW floors in the bedroom then spend as much or more covering them up with rugs for comfort and looks...what a waste right?

Well, that's exactly what we did and love it! We love the look and feel of natural wood floors with rugs. I admit that I sometimes cringe that we cover them up with rugs a bit but that's all a part of it I guess. JMO.

My family suffers from allergies. Having hardwood in the bedrooms means that I can easily remove allergens. The whole house is hardwood. We also have a house vac to help keep the allergens outside. Running the furnace a/c fan with a good allergen furnace filter also keeps dust to a minimum.

Having young boys, gotta say I really appreciated having hardwood when the eldest vomited over the edge of the top bunk. I admit it was not great fun to clean the boys' room at 2 am, but it was much easier than trying to get puke out of carpet!

We do have shaved berber in the basement and on the steps. It already has a number of kid and pet stains that are permanent despite best efforts. The hardwood looks brand new. I wish I had gone with stained concrete in the basement.

We do have an area rug in front of the TV so the kids can lounge or play in the great room. Area rugs by each door keep dirt from being tracked in.

We all go barefoot or sock footed year round. (We are in the midwest and cold feet have not been an issue.) The boys love to do the Tom Cruise "Risky Business" slide whenever possible.

We could not buy or rent a carpeted house without a plan to put down hard surfaces. The number of allergy sufferers is quickly increasing.

HTH
Brian

I had hardwood throughout my house. I originally wanted the hardwood because I thought it was cleaner, and two of my children have allergies. The problem is that it is loud. I really didn't like hearing every pin drop on the floor above me. I also didn't like hearing people marching around upstairs when I wanted to sleep in. I also had problems putting my youngest to sleep, because she always heard her older siblings up and down the steps. We are doing a remodel, and are adding the hardwoods to the new part of the house on the 1st floor to keep it continuous with the old. I will put a runner on the steps and install a low pile either wool or nylon carpet in the hall and two new bedrooms. I want the warmth and quiteness that the carpet will provide. I never had that "warm" feeling in the bedrooms with the hardwoods and we had oriental areas. We also added radiant floor heat, so not choosing hardwood for the bedrooms I realize is not what most people would do. I know my opinion does not reflect the popular vote here!

When I had dogs, I had hard surfaces everywhere in the house (dogs and wall to wall carpeting don't mix, in my mind, as the carpet seems to absorb smell). I'm a bare foot person, and had no issues with cold floors (but I have tough feet - ha!) I've had w2w carpeting since, and find that it is 'easier' to keep clean because it traps the dust (but isn't actually cleaner bec it does just that!) and the w2w only looks good if it hasn't been attacked by my children - paint, nailpolish etc. And for some reason, my cats always run to the carpeting to chuck. Yuck.

All this to say, I think that hardwood with a nice short shag area rug would look good in a master bedroom.

We have hardwood throughout our house, and the only place we have area rugs is under our couches (to protect the floor underneath). I don't get the point of having area rugs all over the place, myself...might as well just have carpet, then. But to each his own :)

In the winter, I just wear socks. In the summer, I'm barefoot. The floors are very easy to keep clean. And because I have allergies, I vastly prefer to have hardwood floors -- we can keep the allergens picked up a lot easier than we could with carpet.