The Pros and Cons of Carpeted Floors – What Type of Flooring Should You Choose

If you are changing the decor in your home or getting a new place ready to move into, one of the most important decisions to make is what type of flooring you want in each room. This is particularly important to decide for rooms like your bedrooms and living room, and for hallways, where you will need to decide whether you want fitted carpets, or you would prefer to lay some form of hard floorings, such as laminate, wood or tiles. 

There are certainly pros and cons to carpets, which you should weigh up in your decisions.

Benefits of a Carpet

Some people definitely prefer the look and feel of a soft, textured carpet to harder floors. From a safety perspective, carpets are also much harder to slip on, quieter, and softer, so this can be a consideration in some cases. With a carpet, you can introduce all kinds of color or interesting patterns into your decor, too, and if you take good care of it, it should be a long-lasting addition to your home. Carpets are also good if your house gets cold.

Downsides of Carpets Compared With Hard Floors

However, carpets are definitely more high maintenance than most other kinds of floors. They require vacuuming rather than being able to be swept clean, and you will also want to regularly shampoo them to keep them looking their best. If you have pets, carpets will pick up hair and require even more careful cleaning to keep them smelling fresh, and of course, stains and spills are a lasting problem with carpets, too, and so small accidents that are no big deal with other types of flooring can leave permanent damage to them. You will probably also find that things like underfloor heating are not an option under carpeted floors in most cases.

What About Hard Floors With Rugs?

If you like the look of carpets in terms of being able to choose a luxurious texture or add a color or pattern to the room, but you also don’t want the drawbacks of fitted carpets, you could choose rugs instead. Having the best carpet steam cleaner is an essential tool whether you have fitted carpets or use large area rugs, so bear this in mind if you are considering the option of solid floors with rugs on top. Rugs can, however, be a very good choice if you want to be able to vary how warm or cool the floor is underfoot at different times of the year, allowing for that warm, carpet feel in winter and keeping the cooling feel of tiled or wooden floors in the summer months.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why carpets can be harder work to look after than other types of flooring like hardwood, laminate, parquet, or tiles, but they do make up for this in comfort and style if you prefer the look and feel they can offer. Which you choose in each room will depend on your needs, but make sure you do think your flooring through for each part of your home, as it can be one of the hardest things to change if you end up wishing you’d chosen differently.