My kid complains about hairy feet! Hardwood vs carpet

[resolution]

Jun 4, 2015 11:05:02 GMT -5 Abby Normal said:

Just a reminder that you and your dogs do not shed less- just because you have carpeting. The cleaning method is just different.

So if you get the hardwood- do it because it's what you want- not because you think- by some miracle- there won't be hair on the floor. 

I was going to mention that I have all hardwood floors and I still get hairy feet (I have long hair and shed a ton) if I don't clean them often enough.

[kittensaver]

Jun 4, 2015 14:34:16 GMT -5 HoneyBBQ said:

Gosh, seems like a 50/50 split. I like that carpet is cozy and warm. But I do think with dogs dragging their butts on it that maybe I don't want to nuzzle up in it? Dunno. 

This ^ ^ ^ (bolded) doesn't surprise me at all! We all have our opinions (lol). If you like carpet but worry about the hygiene issues and replacement costs of W-t-W, well, that is why some folks have suggested area rugs over hardwood. It's the best of both worlds.

I for one disagree vehemently with people who say hardwood is too difficult to maintain. It's not hard at all, and I have 4 cats (and 3-4 foster litters per year). Every couple of days I run a dry/dust mop around the rooms, and only spot clean the floors when something spills or a fur baby upchucks. (okay, okay - so the housekeeper DOES wet mop when she's there ).

I think you should roll with whatever your gut is telling you will work best for your home and your family. JMHO.

[CarolinaKat]

Jun 4, 2015 14:48:47 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Jun 4, 2015 14:34:16 GMT -5 HoneyBBQ said:

Gosh, seems like a 50/50 split. I like that carpet is cozy and warm. But I do think with dogs dragging their butts on it that maybe I don't want to nuzzle up in it? Dunno. 

This ^ ^ ^ (bolded) doesn't surprise me at all! We all have our opinions (lol). If you like carpet but worry about the hygiene issues and replacement costs of W-t-W, well, that is why some folks have suggested area rugs over hardwood. It's the best of both worlds.

I for one disagree vehemently with people who say hardwood is too difficult to maintain. It's not hard at all, and I have 4 cats (and 3-4 foster litters per year). Every couple of days I run a dry/dust mop around the rooms, and only spot clean the floors when something spills or a fur baby upchucks. (okay, okay - so the housekeeper DOES wet mop when she's there ).

I think you should roll with whatever your gut is telling you will work best for your home and your family. JMHO.

My cats target the rugs

[kittensaver]

Jun 4, 2015 14:53:08 GMT -5 CarolinaKat said:

Jun 4, 2015 14:48:47 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

This ^ ^ ^ (bolded) doesn't surprise me at all! We all have our opinions (lol). If you like carpet but worry about the hygiene issues and replacement costs of W-t-W, well, that is why some folks have suggested area rugs over hardwood. It's the best of both worlds.

I for one disagree vehemently with people who say hardwood is too difficult to maintain. It's not hard at all, and I have 4 cats (and 3-4 foster litters per year). Every couple of days I run a dry/dust mop around the rooms, and only spot clean the floors when something spills or a fur baby upchucks. (okay, okay - so the housekeeper DOES wet mop when she's there ).

I think you should roll with whatever your gut is telling you will work best for your home and your family. JMHO.

My cats target the rugs

Which is exactly why we all have to set our homes up in the way that suits us and our families. If I had cats that targeted my rugs my answer might be very different . . .

[CarolinaKat]

Jun 4, 2015 14:54:45 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Jun 4, 2015 14:53:08 GMT -5 CarolinaKat said:

My cats target the rugs

Which is exactly why we all have to set our homes up in the way that suits us and our families. If I had cats that targeted my rugs my answer might be very different . . .

Thankfullly mine prefer to do it on the small washable ones, so I can just throw them in the washer. I think I might die if we had wall to wall carpet.

[kittensaver]

Jun 4, 2015 14:57:50 GMT -5 CarolinaKat said:

Jun 4, 2015 14:54:45 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Which is exactly why we all have to set our homes up in the way that suits us and our families. If I had cats that targeted my rugs my answer might be very different . . .

Thankfullly mine prefer to do it on the small washable ones, so I can just throw them in the washer. I think I might die if we had wall to wall carpet.

Yep, this is one of the reasons we don't have w-t-w carpets - - you MIGHT be able to get the smell out of the carpet (the top layer), but it will never come out of the padding and lower layers . Area rugs can be rolled up and send out for cleaning and sanitizing . . . w-t-w carpet, not so much.

[dannylion]

Some ideas:

1. Encourage child to embrace the concept of "hairy feet." It makes her special. Not everyone has the opportunity to have hairy feet.

2. Train child to use vacuum cleaner (since she's rather young, maybe start her off with a carpet sweeper--no electricity, no sucking up of draperies, bedding, dogs, etc.)

3. Shoes.

[Ryan]

I'd go hardwood...no question about it.  Our house used to be 50% carpet and then we ripped it out and went 100% hardwood throughout.  It looks cleaner and it IS cleaner.  Carpet is just so disgusting when you think about it.

[debthaven]

I think carpet is revolting. I never realized how unsanitary it was until we got hard floors downstairs (LR and DR) and saw the dirt piling up. Yes it's the same amount of dirt but hard floors are (IMO) MUCH easier to clean, and to clean well. Dirt / hair / fur don't get embedded in a wooden floor like they do in carpeting.

Honey, you can easily afford it, so I would definitely do it. You're talking about staying in that house for another 10 years ... bite the bullet and spend the next 10 years without spending more of your time or energy on the carpeting you are visibly unhappy with.  

This said, my DH is like a lot of the DHs here ... he wants carpet in our bedroom.

The solution / compromise we found was to replace the carpets everywhere in the house except for the 2 master bedrooms, because DH and DS2 (who has the other) both wanted carpet in their bedrooms. Maybe that would work for you? Replace the carpeting in your DD's bedroom and other common spaces upstairs so she doesn't complain about having hairy feet anymore lol.

That worked for us: we replaced all the carpeting except for the 2 master bedrooms. I still think carpet is gross but at least there's very little of it left, and our bedroom is definitely a no-shoe zone. 

We live in a temperate climate. We replaced the carpeting in the basement with cheap tile (we had laminate there at one point but the basement flooded so we replaced the laminate with cheap tile. We replaced the LR/DR carpet with good terra cotta tile. We replaced the carpeting in the smaller bedrooms and guest room with laminate (I would have preferred solid wood but it was too thick, we would have had to redo all the doors and door frames and that was too expensive.)

[Ryan]

What also made it easier for us to swallow was we were paying to have the carpet cleaned at least once a year. Pretty much before every big event, my wife wanted it cleaned because it got so dirty . Now, we just use a steam vacuum thing on the floors and they look great

[Deleted]

I like the way carpet feels and the way hardwood looks. I have both in my house, carpet in only 2 rooms.

I've only ever had those 2 rooms of carpet, but still I bought a good vacuum cleaner and a carpet cleaner. I cleaned my carpets fairly often because I had 2 large dogs. They both did well with their house training, but still, they were dogs that ran around outside and then came inside.

I'm not as grossed out by carpet as some other people, as long as it's vacuumed and cleaned regularly. And I'm a bit of a germophobe. 

A long time ago I had a chow. Her shedding drove me crazy because if you tried to sweep it up, it would kind of float up into the air. It was much easier to vacuum it than sweep it up, so I started vacuuming my hard floors too.

[Malarky]

Another vote for hardwoods.  I have either hardwood or tile everywhere with area rugs.  

I've only ever lived in one house with wall to wall carpet and I loathed it.  I clean under my rugs periodically-including the 12'X14' one.  I can't imagine never getting that grime cleaned up.  

[Tiny]

I've never been able to get my vacuum to pick up all the cat hair/debris from the hard wood floors by just vacuuming the floors.   I use a Swiffer  "dust mop" thing  and then vacuum the Tumbleweeds off the Swiffer (with the hose attachment) and keep moving.      I use the hose attachment to suck up the stuff the Swiffer catches that's not dust/hair and to get into the corners and anything on the bottom of chair legs. 

The Little Girl Cat watches in HORROR as I vacuum up her 'used' home made paper wad toys.  (I ball up candy wrappers, a bit of TP or a scrap of paper and she'll become a Short Stop or a Soccer player... )

Sounds like the bedrooms are going to get hard wood floors

[msventoux]

Go even cheaper and do kraft paper flooring with polyurethane on top for a couple of hundred dollars.  Bonus, you may get one or more dogs or your kid stuck in the glue or polyurethane before it dries completely and have to rescue them.  Good family bonding time. 

[tskeeter]

Jun 4, 2015 10:51:15 GMT -5 HoneyBBQ said:

I've posted about this before... but... oh well, here's to a new thread.

Ok, so... our house is 11 years old. We've been in it for a little over 2. When we bought the carpet in the home was pretty ickified, but we are ok with that in the basement because that is where we keep the dogs during the day (they bark at people on the sidewalk going to the park, sigh). Upstairs, not so much.

So, the layout is basement 100% carpet (will replace... someday when the dogs are gone). I don't mind carpet in a chilly basement.
Main floor is 100% hardwood.
Our upstairs is where we have 3 bedrooms + 2 bath + laundry. The hardwood goes through the master and the hallways. The 2 bedrooms have the exact same carpet. 

The carpet is REALLY light colored.... and we have 3 dogs (2 black) and a toddler... and... I don't vacuum enough. And they were already stained to begin with. 

Pic of carpet (from the sellers not our stuff).



So, my kid often complains about hairy feet when she runs around barefoot. It's my hair.. .the dogs hair... its dirt... it's icky.

I have priced out how much it is to replace the two bedrooms with the oak hardwood flooring and stain to match and it's 5k.

I can afford it. But I'm a cheap bastard. Trying to do that whole retire early thing... house already costs way to much....

I can't really decide what's worse; blowing cash on some wood that is over priced or having my kid live in squalor. Ok, not quite, but the carpets really never look clean even when they ARE clean... and don't stay clean for more than a day because of how light they are.

My spouse thinks carpet is NICE in a bedroom. I hate it and want wood floors and a rug I can throw away someday if it's too nasty.

Anyways, should I just do it? I'd like to do it in the summer if possible because we can ventilate a bit more. What a PITA. 

And PS I hate the yellow walls. I'm slowly painting the entire house away from builder's yellow.

Your pic looks like the carpeting in our last house.  We, too, had shedding dogs.  Who also dragged in a lot of dirt.  After a few months of scrubbing the carpet in the family room every month or so, we resorted to heavy duty painter's drop cloths.  Light colored, heavy enough to stay in place pretty well.  Pick up every week or so and run through the washer.  Clean enough dog hair out of the lint screen to knit sweaters.  But don't want to smell like a wet dog if I got caught in the rain. 

[debthaven]

Honey, another thought: if you do decide to replace carpet with more carpet, consider berber. You can get it in different shades and the dirt is much less visible. We have white berber carpeting in our bedroom. But keep in mind that it's wool, if anybody in your family has allergies. 

Funny story: My ex and I were living in his grandmother's studio while waiting for our house to be finished. Her studio had just been redone with white berber. We liked it so much we ordered the same carpeting for our entire house.

Then our dog barfed. The next day, we called the carpet store and changed the order from white berber to light brown berber. 

The light brown berber is the carpet that DH and I eventually replaced with the tile / laminate. That light brown berber carpet hid the dirt SO well that we freaked out when we saw how just much dirt there was on our new hard floors, and realized how well the berber had hidden it. 

[Deleted]

I have about 30% tile, 50% carpet and 20% hardwood.

I live where it gets pretty cold and I don't even go into the tile area in the winter!  The hardwood is ok, but I prefer carpet.  Otherwise I just always feel cold.  I suppose hardwood would be fine if you wore shoes in the house, but we don't.  I'm down to just one cat now, so I don't really have a hair issue, but when we had 2 dogs and 2 cats, it was easier to keep the carpeted area looking clean.  Yeah, there's a much hair on it, but at least it stays and isn't floating around and noticeable. 

I'm a compulsive vacuumer though.