The art of creating a stylish and peaceful home interior and everyday living environment can be overwhelming, given all the options and various materials to make decisions on. One of the most essential decisions to be made is choosing between hardwood floors or carpeting in specific rooms. This choice does come with a significant investment, so making the right decision that you can live with and love is important.

Many homeowners and interior designers have specific reasons on why they choose carpeting over hardwood flooring, or vice versa. And that’s no surprise since there are many reasons or conditions that warrant using wood floors or carpet.

Since the decision over carpeting versus hardwood flooring is a common one that we are asked about frequently, we thought it would be extremely helpful to categorize these two distinctly different flooring options and create a checklist that will help you narrow down the best flooring choice for your family and your lifestyle.

10 Reasons to Select Carpeting

Carpeting is great for rooms with lots of family activity, hanging out on the floor to play with the pets or just waking up to warm, softness of carpet under your feet when they hit the floor in the morning. Carpeting has come a long way with its diverse colors, patterns, and textures. You would be surprised how eco-friendly it is now as well!

Carpeting a specific room in your house might be the perfect solution if you are looking for any of these benefits:

• Need a feeling of warmth and coziness within a room
• Looking for comfort and softness in your flooring
• Extra insulation for drafts in your home
• A method for soundproofing or sound reduction
• An overall budget-friendly option in flooring
• Vibrant colors and shades to match any color palette
• Carpeting tile options that are easy for DIYers to tackle
• Large scale geometric graphic carpets for personalizing oversized rooms
• Extremely earth-friendly: Made from all-natural fibers and non-toxic dyes
• Vast selection of design options: Textures, prints, looped, sisal, shag and more

10 Reasons to Select Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood floors are not as limited as they used to be, with selections of engineered to solid and exotic species to durable options these flooring surfaces can take much more wear and tear than ever. Not to mention, the varying shades of dark and light hardwood floors. The plus side is that they are also extremely beneficial for increasing a home’s value and that home value increase through the installation of hardwood floors can be considerable. Additionally, they just look fabulous.

Hardwood flooring is an option that might suit you best with these attributes:

• Requiring flooring that is durable and easy to maneuver around on
• Interested in a unique trendy style
• Beautiful in appearance and easily maintained
• Stain-resistant
• A good choice for allergy sufferers – hypoallergenic
• A large variety of grain patterns, stains, and finishes to choose from
• Selections between wide planks, thin planks and some in-between
• Long-lasting: It can last for decades with repeated sandings
• Classic in design
• Increases your home’s value

Things to Consider When Choosing Flooring

To make the best match with your family, lifestyle, personal tastes and flooring placement it makes sense to first take a look at these questions.  Answer them with your flooring specialist, so you not only select the most appealing floor for your room but also the one that will best meet your needs over the lifespan you are in your home.

• How much traffic does this area get?
• How much dirt will be tracked there and frequency of cleaning needed?
• How much moisture accumulates in that space?
• Will there be pets in this space?
• Will there be children in this space?
• How do you plan on using this space most of the time?
• How long do you plan on being in this home?
• Are you considering reselling your home?

It Really Isn’t Hardwood Flooring vs Carpeting

So here’s the thing. We rarely see a scenario where our customer is choosing between carpeting or hardwood floors. In fact, each of these flooring options has its place based on preference, lifestyle, and design. Frankly, many of our clients are doing some kind of combination of wood floors alongside carpeting and tile, of various types, to create the perfect blend needed for their application.

At the end of the day, every person has their preferences and some detest carpeting while others really dislike wood floors for one reason or another. The point to take home here is that you have options and with each of those options there are advantages and disadvantages. To make the best flooring decision, it is helpful to know where carpeting or hardwood flooring is a good fit and the benefits of each. We hope this post has helped detail those benefits for you in order to prepare you to make the best selection between carpeting vs hardwood flooring for you.