Wood flooring and carpet flooring each have their own redeeming qualities. However, when the time comes to select the appropriate flooring for your home, it’s important that you’ve conducted proper research so that you can confidently make a decision you’ll be happy with for the foreseeable future.
Today, many homes use a combination of flooring types, ranging from hardwood floors to carpet, tile, linoleum, concrete and other materials. Each type of flooring provides its own inherent benefits, as well as vulnerabilities. Let’s take a look two of the more popular flooring choices, wood and carpet, each of which are available in an outstanding selection of color and texture options to compliment any home.
Hardwood Flooring Benefits
If cared for properly, hardwood flooring can literally last a lifetime. In addition to the various species of wood available, wood flooring can add additional character to your home through the different plank length and widths, textures (such as hand scraped or wire brushed), stains and finishes, each of which can be customized to create a truly unique look according to your specifications.
A few of the key perks of hardwood flooring include:
- High durability
- Can boost the value of your home
- Easily refinished and re-stained
- Naturally beautiful
- Easy to clean
- Environmentally sustainable and renewable
- Can be paired and layered with rugs
Carpeted Flooring Benefits
Carpet usually lasts between 5 to 10 years depending on the quality and the traffic it receives in normal home environments. Slightly more temporary in nature, carpet is also more readily replaced that hardwood flooring. This characteristic, along with the lower product and installation costs, can give you the flexibility to more easily embrace current design trends, including unique carpet patterns that create an exclusive look.
Here are some common reasons to consider carpeted flooring in your home:
- Quick installation
- Soft and plush
- Helps dull sounds in the home
- Requires less frequent cleaning
- Provides a layer of insulation underfoot
Other Important Considerations When Choosing Between Wood Flooring & Carpet
If you have family members with allergies, you may also want to think about how often you intend to clean your floors. With wood flooring, dirt and dust particles rest on top of the flooring, making clean up relatively straightforward. On the other hand, while carpet can be vacuumed regularly, it doesn’t clean up quite as well as wood flooring because dust and dirt does settle into the carpeting over time.
Other lifestyle considerations that you may want to think about when weighing the pros and cons of wood flooring vs. carpet include:
- How well house-trained your current pets are
- Personal design and aesthetic preferences
- How often you intend to eat or drink in the given space
- Whether or not you or your family regularly removes shoes at the door
- Anticipated traffic for the space
Remember, many homes include a mix of flooring types. Bedrooms and below-ground basements are often carpeted, while main living areas often use wood flooring. While these uses of carpet and wood flooring are somewhat common, the decision of which flooring type to use in each room or space of your home is entirely up to you! If you have questions or concerns about which type of flooring makes the most sense for your home project, don’t hesitate to ask a trusted hardwood flooring professional.
