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Bedroom is being renovated, not really a fan of carpet. But we have found some Sisal carpet that we like…
But the only price we’ve been able to get so far is about £3000+ which amounts to about £1600 labour for the fitting.
This puts it well in to engineered oak floor territory, well actually about 2.5 times the price (assuming I fit the wood myself). I’m not sure about wood for a bedroom…
Have any of you lot got anything you really rate or hate?
Ta 🙂
We've got nice carpet, I really rate it.
But then I don't really like hard floors, they're too cold and echoey. We've got laminate in the lounge and after four years of quiet persuasion, MrsIHN has finally agreed that we can carpet over it.
Clothes, suitcases, footwear and everything else I'm using but too lazy to store on a shelf or in a cupboard!
A full bearskin, the only logical alternative.
Actually, just looking at your quote, is sisal carpet particularly expensive, or is the room enormous or something? I ask as we've just had two bedrooms, stairs and landing done for under three grand, fitted, that's for decent quality 80/20 wool mix carpet and decent underlay.
We've got hard floors throughout the house - polished concrete on ground floor, engineered wood on upper floors. Building a new house wood is VAT free but carpet isn't and wood works better with underfloor heating.
If I was building again I'd keep hard flooring on the ground floor but would definitely have carpet for the bedrooms. It's nicer to step out of bed onto and quieter (both in terms of room acoustics and transmission to/from other rooms
How big an area are you covering? I thought that our bedroom carpet was expensive, but flipping heck over 3k is a lot!
A full bearskin, the only logical alternative.
a bearskin full of what?
i always assumed Royal Fusiliers kept their sandwiches in them
Sisal is like sandpaper on your feet. Get a lovely thick wool carpet, you'll be glad in winter.
We’ve got hard floors throughout the house – polished concrete on ground floor,
Ooh, interesting. Carpet is hideous, but it does have the advantage that it acts as a reservoir for dust, so you don't get dust bunnies floating around the place when you don't vacuum daily.
We have bare wood floors evrywhere. zero issues.
Roombas and the like don a great work on a hardwood floor.
Hard flooring running seamlessly throughout, the detestable carpet is a distant memory!
A deep shag in the bedroom is a tad retro but having experienced one in a French hotel I'd say it's worth considering. Failing that , rugs over hardwood floors is very nice and a touch bohemian if that is your vibe.
I did have a sisal rug once, it was indeed rasp like, and I don't mean soft fruit. It stained really easily, a glass of water would leave awful marks
Our new house has some old pub style patterned carpet where we haven't renovated yet. It looks ghastly but it is nice to walk in on a chilly morning
I responded to a similar flooring thread a couple of weeks ago extolling the virtues of office style carpet tiles, which we have put on as a cheap temporary solution as we are a bit short of cash whilst building a new house. They are laid on top of a concrete screed with underfloor heating. Easy to lay, clean and replace, soft enough under foot and dirt cheap (about £3/m², used).
We are gradually replacing with cork flooring. Not the grim 12inch x 12inch notice board style tiles that you can pick up from B&Q, but there are a lot of more contemporary styles and sizes available
This sort of thing. Soft underfoot, can be cleaned like a hard floor, natural, sustainable, and a bit different to karndean etc.
https://www.bricoflor.co.uk/flooring/cork/granorte/tradition.html
A deep shag in the bedroom
Oiled herd wood in our bedroom. Oak makes a nice warm floor, and means you can have nice rugs if like, which never look right on carpets
14 years ago when we bought our house, a 50s ex council, we got rid of the carpet and just sanded the existing old pine floor boards and thats what we have had since.
I would choose wood over carpet all the time.
I am still traumatised from when i moved to Scotland from Denmark 21 years ago and i kept coming across carpets in bathrooms.
deep pile carpet but would prefer Versace
I am still traumatised from when i moved to Scotland from Denmark 21 years ago and i kept coming across carpets in bathrooms.
bloody immigrants coming over here and disrespecting our carpet culture ;o)
Lol i swear the B&B i stayed in the first week had inch deep pile carpet and it was PINK
Clothes, suitcases, footwear and everything else I’m using but too lazy to store on a shelf or in a cupboard!
Ah we also have a floordrobe.
Ours is mainly on the other side of the bed than mine.
I am still traumatised from when i moved to Scotland from Denmark 21 years ago and i kept coming across carpets in bathrooms.
To be fair 21years ago most scottish folk would be wondering why the **** there was carpet in he bathroom still.
Polished concrete on all floors.
Every winter we buy a metre of the most expensive carpet we can find, it then gets made in to slippers for the family and guests.
#livingtheVizdream
Laminate. Not sure why people think it's noisy - it's pretty close to silent when you're wearing slippers or barefoot.
So some hate wood, some love it. No horror stories though 🙂
Noise below isn’t an issue because it’s over the garage, although that does bring potential cold floor issues.
I think an oiled oak will probably feel a bit warmer than the lacquered bamboo we have downstairs and that never feels that cold.
Ordered a couple of cork samples to have a look at too.
Actually, just looking at your quote, is sisal carpet particularly expensive, or is the room enormous or something?
Bit more expensive than normal carpet and I expected a bit more to fit as it needs gluing down, but the quote seems excessive. We’ve got someone coming to measure and quote next week.
4.5m x 5m ish at the widest points.
it’s over the garage, although that does bring potential cold floor issues.
Is it an option to replace the floorboards with something nicer rather than put engineered wood over them?
I replaced my living room floor boards with sycamore (which courtesy of Storm Arwen barely cost more than softwood at the time) - taking up the old boards give an opportunity to insulate underneath and the difference is remarkable. (I'm waiting til we re-do the kitchen to extend the sycamore and insulation into there so can currently stand with a foot on each of insulated and non insulated floors at the moment)
The insulation (earth wool sandwiched between vapour barrier) damps the sound of the floor too
Sisal is like sandpaper on your feet
Just like Izal toilet paper is on yer ring
Dunno, can’t see anything under the wife’s mountain of clothes……….grrrr!
Time to upgrade to an indoor patio.
Is it an option to replace the floorboards with something nicer rather than put engineered wood over them?
Not really at this stage… the walls are now 100mm thicker than they started which means the joists around the edges are covered so would be a bit tricky, but not impossible.
I did consider ripping the boards up but decided against it and instead have a future plan to insulate from underneath.
It’s the noises that bounce/echo off it, rather than the noise of walking on it, that does my nut in. Different strokes for different folks though.
We’ve got wood (well bamboo) downstairs and it’s not noisy apart from the occasional heavy foot. I might feel differently if we had noisy kids running about on it or throwing things around but it’s just the 2 of us.
Hard floors give nasty acoustics. Carpets deaden sound nicely.
Big tiles and a nice pair of Adidas flip-flops( or sliders as they say nowadays)
Any time we have had anything but carpets.... Mrs t-r wanted a rug because the hard floor was cold. Seemed like a pointless exercise not to just go direct to carpet as wood floor plus carpet.
Rest of the house is various hard floors -tiles/oak/lvt/laminate
How ever 3 grand for a carpet can gtf
How ever 3 grand for a carpet can gtf
Could get two beds for that price
Hard floors give nasty acoustics. Carpets deaden sound nicely.
Depends on a lot of things really - given the walls and ceiling are typically hard surfaces too (unless you've been sectioned) but in a bedroom you tend to have one great big soft sound damping item in the room anyway. A carpet isn't going to have a meaning full impact on acoustics when theres a mattress, pillow, duvet etc in the room
which amounts to about £1600 labour for the fitting.
We have a fair bit of sisal on the ground floor but wouldn't do bedrooms as it's "hard".
It very hard-wearing but it you can't clean it so don't use it in the hall!
It's quite expensive to fit as the underlay [needs to be good] gets glued to the floor and then the sisal is glued to the underlay.
It’s quite expensive to fit as the underlay [needs to be good] gets glued to the floor and then the sisal is glued to the underlay.
That sounds like fun if you ever have to lift a floorboard.
That sounds like fun if you ever have to lift a floorboard.
Easier than lifting an oak floor though!
(I won’t have to lift anything, I’ll cut a hole in the ceiling underneath instead).
We have a fair bit of sisal on the ground floor but wouldn’t do bedrooms as it’s “hard”.
It very hard-wearing but it you can’t clean it so don’t use it in the hall!
It’s quite expensive to fit as the underlay [needs to be good] gets glued to the floor and then the sisal is glued to the underlay.
As someone who likes walking around in bare feet as much as possible I think I’m OK with the hardness/sandpaper effect.
Not being able to clean it noted though!
This morning’s plan is to use hardwood in the bedroom and sisal up the stairs and landing. We’ve already got wood down in the hallway and the majority of downstairs.
Depends on a lot of things really – given the walls and ceiling are typically hard surfaces too (unless you’ve been sectioned) but in a bedroom you tend to have one great big soft sound damping item in the room anyway.
Lounge doesn’t sound particularly echoey 🙂
Currently empty bedroom does but I’m sure when the bed is back in and some clothes are thrown over the floor it’ll be fine
How ever 3 grand for a carpet can gtf
Yep!
Wax.
We did bamboo to match the downstairs, turned out alright 🙂
Oiled herd wood in our bedroom
Read this as 'oiled herdwick' and was ready to try not to judge.
We've got cheap but tough carpet in the bedrooms because kids. Downstairs is stained pine floorboards. Not my idea, like that when we bought it. I love the bare boards but would've preferred they weren't stained. Big rug in the living room but it does get quite cold in winter.
A deep shag in the bedroom is a tad retro but having experienced one in a French hotel I'd say it's worth considering.
Did you have to pay extra for that service or was it included?
Painted floorboards, rest of the flat is original 60’s oiled iroku stripwood floor with a couple of decent quality rugs, one bedroom has a rug at the foot of the bed, other has a runner that goes between back to back desks as it’s an office/spare room.
Really don’t understand the obsession with fitted carpets? Just about every other country has realised they are unsanitary and filthy things, why do we have them in pubs!?! at least people have stopped having them in bathrooms and those awful U shaped piss catchers to go round the toilet.
I've got wood throughout, either engineered, laminate, sanded/stained planks and parquet in the living room.
All of them are warm, none of them are noisy (I've even got two kids stomping around every other week). I'm sure if i was dropping some planks onto a badly insulated/isolated concrete slab/floor with no care for the prep, they'd probably be a lot noisier...
Only exceptions are the office, which was originally the kids room, which is carpeted, the bathrooms/sauna (tiled/duckboards) and the service room/workshop which is lino.
Hard floors give nasty acoustics. Carpets deaden sound nicely.
Depends on a lot of things really - given the walls and ceiling are typically hard surfaces too (unless you've been sectioned) but in a bedroom you tend to have one great big soft sound damping item in the room anyway. A carpet isn't going to have a meaning full impact on acoustics when theres a mattress, pillow, duvet etc in the room
Carpetting my bedroom nade a huge difference. Its a big room 5.5mx4.5m and i had a huge bed in it 2.2m x 2m.
Full underlay and carpet altered the accoustics ckearly and obviously.
I doubt for many folk its a big issue but i have prper hi fi speakers on proper stands and the improvement with carpet was immense
A Rug and about 500 piles of my mrs clothing. Wouldn’t recommend.
Laminate. Not sure why people think it's noisy - it's pretty close to silent when you're wearing slippers or barefoot.
Not trying to imply you're wrong (because it probably depends a lot on the construction of the floor/ceiling and the underlay used) but I've lived in three places where the upstairs had laminate and each of them was chuffing noisy when you were in the room below. It was mostly thuds coming through from people walking about or dropping stuff.
So if OP does decide to go with laminate or similar, then I'd suggest checking out accoustic underlays!
I doubt for many folk its a big issue but i have prper hi fi speakers on proper stands and the improvement with carpet was immense
Yes, the sound with my proper speakers is really good with the properly installed parquet that i have in the living room
then I'd suggest checking out accoustic underlays!
Proper preparation...
The answer is underfloor heating and tiles. For decent soundproofing and insulation, you may want to demolish the current house and call in Kevin McCloud for narration/impregnation duties.
I wouldn't want sisal in a bedroom, it can be hard work on bare feet. We had it on the stairs in a previous house, but decided against it in the current one.
sex rug.
oh, er... just a big, regular rug, for regular things like keeping your feet warm. Y'know, like a rug but regular