Flooring Options

Over the past 3 years we have replaced every square inch of flooring in our home. Through this process I've learned several lessons that I'd love to share...

In the first 2 of 3 bedrooms that we renovated, we chose plush beige color carpets that were very neutral and attractive.

However, we quickly realized these carpets showed every single dark piece of lint that landed on them and after having our first child we realized they obviously don't mix well with baby spit up and other miscellaneous stains...{fortunately a steam cleaning company was able to salvage the carpets for me for just $100, sure beats re-carpeting}. But I doubt we'll make that mistake again.

By the time we carpeted the 3rd bedroom (the master) we were much wiser.  We chose a freize with speckles in it something like this:

We noticed that our friends' entire home was carpeted with something similar. They pointed out the practicality of the speckles. Lint and stains were a lot less visible. Or even if your baby drops a few cheerios...they blend right in! I love this.

We ended up choosing another carpet similar to that for our family room a year later. However, for the family room we were sure to get a nylon carpet, and slightly darker than the master bedroom. The carpet we had chosen for the master bedroom was a polyester and it did not stand up to traffic as well as the family room carpet is so far. I definitely recommend a nylon carpet.

The other thing we learned is that we DO NOT like laminate wood flooring. It is very unforgiving. If you spill water in a crack, it swells and leaves a lump behind. And if you drop even a fork on it, it nicks the surface. We learned you can fix that with a little black sharpy :) but it's not very practical. Not to mention it looks fake! And we even found the most "real" looking laminate possible. Something like this:

I think actual hardwood would be much more practical (not to mention much more beautiful!). It can at least be sanded and restained in the event it is damaged in some way. The entire room of laminate would have to be taken out and replaced instead of a little spot repair.

In our current kitchen and laundry room we ended up choosing 16" square travertine tiles.

They have been spectacular and are absolutely gorgeous! They are the color of dirt. Makes it great if you're lazy like me and hate sweeping floors. It's my most hated chore. I'd rather do almost anything. Give me a toilet to clean any day!

We also put marble tiles in our master bathroom

and ceramic tiles in our hall bathroom. We especially love the master bath floor because we put electric heating underneath the tiles. It makes it very fun to walk on in the winter (as opposed to the other tile floors in the house which are freezing cold!).

Dave & I both absolutely LOVE the variation of natural stone such as marble, granite and travertine. It is amazing to gaze at God's vast creation.

As far as I can tell the only disadvantage to the tile flooring is when you drop something breakable, you can pretty much say "goodbye". I've dropped several glass jars in the kitchen (and ironically, Dave just dropped a glass measuring cup as I typed this...) and I've learned that they immediately shatter into a thousand pieces. I have discovered a good way to pick up the pieces is to use a dust vacuum and then shine a bright flashlight right across the surface of the floor to make sure you got all of the little shards of glass. It works well. And sure beats getting glass in your foot later on!

What are your favorite flooring options and why?