If anyone is considering installing carpet

[jessmarimba]

Don't.

Just don't.

For the sake of whoever owns your house 30+ years from now.

I pulled it up in my bedroom and upstairs sitting room (? the other upstairs room) and have sanded and painted one of the floors and still have the bedroom left to sand. My downstairs bedroom will either need new carpet (YUCK!), there will be a 4-inch step down into that room to the old hardwood, or I'll need to figure out how to installed a second layer of hardwood on the framework for the current carpet (which is level with the top of the original baseboards...and yes, the baseboards are still there. Idiot owners. Between raising the floor 4 inches and lowering the ceiling 6 inches in the dining room...that is one short room).

I have never been so happy for a shower. And beer. And ice cream. I think I earned it.

[Koronin]

There's also the new homes that have a concrete slab under the carpet. That is what is under the carpet at my old house and I would assume under the carpet in this house. The bedrooms and hall way to the bedrooms have carpet here. Either the family we bought this house from or the previous owner put hardwood floors in the living room and bonus room (off the living room that we are going to use as an office).

[Aggie_Ama]

We have concrete slabs in Texas but I am lobbying to remove as much carpet as possible from our house. As an allergy sufferer it seems to help. My parents house only has carpet in the bedrooms, I think this is what my husband will go for. The dogs seem annoyed with my parents hardwood because they can't get traction to chase each other but they get no votes.

[badger]

carpet is badbadbad. When I was renting with carpets throughout, I always had problem with fleas. Now that I only have hardwood, aside from the stray bite I don't really have a problem.

Speaking of concrete, when I renovate my kitchen, I really want to just have concrete with that acid finish. I hate grout, and cleaning would be a breeze. The only problem is I've yet to see one that's actually decent looking.

[jessmarimba]

That stained concrete stuff is neat! I always kind of wanted the black and white tile floor for kitchen (at least concrete subfloor will hold tile - my floor joists aren't built for the extra weight).

I read the book "Help, my house is killing me" once and have had to try really hard not to think about it since I moved in here. Way too much stuff lives in carpet. It's not so bad if you wash it regularly and replace it every 5-7 years, as apartment complexes should, but most homeowners don't.

And yes, my cats hate me now too. But if they hadn't shredded the carpet enough for me to see the hardwood, I probably wouldn't have taken the risk of tossing it yet!

[tangentgirl]

I appreciate that fact that the original owners kept our hardwood floors safely covered with carpet for 50 years. Of course, I wasn't the one who had to rip it all out - someone did that before we bought the place.

I could never cover them up again, hard wood is too pretty. I look at the floors and can't imagine why they would have in the first place.

Then again, they covered the patio with astroturf, so there you go.

[jessmarimba]

Someone here in the 50s? 60s? was apparently obsessed with turquoise. So far I've discovered that the old wood siding under the transite shingles is turquoise, the kitchen walls are covered in turquoise fake plastic tile (that someone fortunately painted white), and there are scraps of turquoise vinyl flooring that were under the upstairs carpet. I can only imagine what this place looked like then!

(I can't wait to get these floors finished and this place cleaned up...I really want to show before and after photos!)

[Owlie]

EEW. Too much.

My mom is in the process of removing most of the carpet in the house. (Granted, the carpet has been there since we moved in and was nearly 20 years old...) The bedrooms now have bamboo floors. Kitchen and hallways are wood. Basement now has laminate (I think?). I think the only rooms in the house with carpet are the dining room, living room and family room...

[bmccasland]

My Great Uncle sold "flooring" which in-the-day meant vinyl or carpeting. Each area of his house had something different. Vinyl in kitchen/dining room, a lovely patterned carpet in the formal living room & dining room, one bedroom wing had another carpet, family room - different carpet, and the master's suite a 4th carpet. Thresholds were interesting to say the least. But carpet everywhere was the thing to do in the 1960's and 1970's. Funny how things are coming full circle. Unless you have in-floor heating, one thing carpet does hold over solid flooring is that it's warmer. Not important in the sun belt, but does have it's value in cooler climes.

[Tri Girl]

we had to remove the carpet in our master bedroom after it flooded 4 years ago. It was DISGUSTING all the dog hair under the carpet and stuck to the concrete slab. Ewwww!
The floor remained concrete until just last year when I finally stained it. I love the stained concrete. We have replaced the carpet in another bedroom, too. Our whole kitchen, living, dining room is all spanish tile and it's SO nice with the dogs (sure, we get dog-hair tumbleweeds, but I can handle that).

Carpet and allergies/asthma is bad juju.
I hate carpet. yuck!

[jessmarimba]

I don't technically have in-floor heating. But between my squirrel infestation last year and whatever chewed the hole into the corner of my bedroom floor, I doubt the 50-year-old ducts are in great shape. So all of the heat that leaks out of them essentially creates - radiant flooring! Ta-DA! (Kind of nice, since there is only one heat vent upstairs anyway)

(Ducts are b/t first and second floors - I don't have a/c, so I can't figure out why they did that. The first floor is never going to be warm.)

[Owlie]

Part of the reason my mom changed the floor (except in the rooms where the carpet is in good shape) was because DBF (she seems to like him ) has allergy-triggered asthma, and I have seasonal allergies and eczema, so I'm at a higher risk for developing asthma. That, and it's a heck of a lot easier to clean...pretty sure that's the main reason.

My old apartment had wood floors... so easy to clean (even if they were in terrible shape), but horribly cold in winter. (It had nothing on the vinyl bathroom or the tile kitchen floors, though.)

[Biciclista]

i tore all the carpets out of my house when we moved in. One by one. Then refinished the floor. over 25 years now, still don't want carpet.

[malkin]

We have just finished removing carpet from our new-to-us hundred year old house. The carpet was probably not more than 5 years old, but the previous owners' dogs apparently preferred it to the great outdoors, and the owners dealt with this by liberal applications of Carpet Fresh and those plug in air fresheners.
*gag*

We've also been painting walls and un-painting windows that haven't opened in years.

It is as much work as training for a century, but doesn't leave much time for cycling.