Wall to wall carpeting VS hardwood floors
 

Right now in our house we have wall to wall carpeting. This Spring we are going to paint most of the interior of our house.

We have a 6 pack of Yorkies ranging from 3 to 12. Over the past 10 years there have been accidents on the carpet. My Husband wants to rip up all the carpeting because there is beautiful hardwood flooring inderneath the carpets.

I am undecided what to do . Are accidents on the wood floor very damaging. ? How do you protect the flooring?

Do you think we should just replace the carpeting or go with the hardwood floors. ???

Your opinion and tips are needed. Thanks

Urine can stain the hardwood. If you clean it up right away usually no problem.

If you darken the natural wood with a wood stain it's less of an issue.

With wall-to-wall carpeting you don't know what's happening to the wood, & it's hard to perfectly cleanup accidents.

I don't know about pee stains on hardwood floors but we recently put in tile throughout the house except the bedrooms because we got a new dog that has been a challenge to housebreak (so after training one and trying to train the other I had enough of cleaning up dogs urine from the carpets). I told my DH either the 2nd dog goes or we tile now (no one get offended by this statement because 1 we had talked about tiling for a while and 2 I would NEVER get rid of the dogs, DH just needed the push to do it sooner rather than later). Anyways we had the tile put in about a month ago and it is so much easier to find the accidents and clean them. I am so glad we did this. Also when they pulled the carpet up I was astonished how many pee stains the carpet really had and realized that we probably didn't really know how often Harley and Sam had actually peed on the floors. I am glad we don't have carpet (except bedrooms) anymore.

I love, love, love my hardwood floors!!! Go with hardwood, plus, if you decide to sell one day, hardwood is definately an upgrade. The only problem with hardwood and Yorkies is that you have to make sure the their feet pads and nails are trimed on a regular basis. When Prince's fur gets too long around his feet, he tends to slip. I don't want him to hurt himself, so I get his fur trimmed about once a month. He has never had an accident on the floor, thank goodness, but cleaning the floor is so easy. I dust mop every two days or so, and mop with Murphy's Oil Soap every Friday.
We do have carpet in our bedrooms, but in the kitchen, powder room and living room, it's hardwood.

I have hardwood floors, with three yorkies and two cats, I love hardwood!!!!! The carpet is just toooooooo hard to keep clean and odor free. Yes, we did rip out all the carpet in the house and I have never, never regretted putting in hardwood. Ditto on the keeping the toenails clipped.

I can't wait till we get rid of all our carpeting! I put wood floors in the kitchen & living room and love it!!! I would not go back to carpet!

I have mostly hardwood floors. I have carpet in all of the bedrooms. I think it's easier to clean up little accidents on the hardwood floors. Ours are stained a bit darker.

You do have to watch them when they're running through the house though. They slide easily.

but does spraying nature's miracle (or other enzyme cleaner) ruin hardwood? i will eventually be putting in hardwood floors (bamboo) but worry that cleaning up after accidents would ruin the wood :confused:

Carpet is the most disgusting thing EVER... no matter if it's new or not. It grosses me out so bad. I refuse to go without socks or slippers no matter where I am... I won't even do it at my brand new apartment. I love hardwood floors and when we have our own house, that's what we'll have, no matter what.

Have your hardwood floors finished with Verathane. You can choose satin or high-gloss. This is the same stuff they put on roller-skating rinks and it is impervious to EVERYTHING. I did the oak floors in a house in California in 1977 with Verathane and when I sold the house in 1990 the floors still looked like they had been freshly finished, even in the entry way. Plus, you can mop the floors with regular mopping solution...once Verathaned, the floors look beautiful, but can be treated like vinyl!

Hardwood
 

I have hardwood and I clean and disinfect with my shark steam mop. No hazardous chemicals, no odor left behind......I love, love, love to clean my floors with steam

I also have ripped up all carpet in the main part of the house. After years of raising kids and potty training animals it had to go. With Roxie being so difficult to potty train and allergy problems with some of us in the family I said no more carpet. We'd go visit my brother in Florida who has 3 dogs, 2 of which are yorkie-poo's and his house is all tile on the lower level. I was sold. How easy it is to clean up messes. They keep a baby gate at the stairs so the dogs can't go up to the bedrooms (all carpeted) unless someone is with them. Downstairs they have a slider door to the back yard with a doggy door in it and the back yard is fully fenced in with a 10 foot privacy fence. They don't even have fleas because he's eliminated alot of the trees that attract squirrels. I love his place it's a very easy place to be with dogs. Anyway...no more carpet for us exept in the bedrooms!!

We have Pergo flooring, but ditto on the shark steam mop. I would also leave a few pee pads down, but as long as you get to it quickly there is no damage and no smell.

I know a lot about hardwood Floors!
 

~We also ripped out our carpet and put in hardwood in bedrooms and tile in the wet rooms and living room, much easier to clean and spot a puddle. Plus with carpet it ruins the pad and it is harder to clean and deodorize. As much as I love carpet in the bedrooms, it just wasn't an option with 5 yorkies.
:aimeeyork:aimeeyork:aimeeyork:aimeeyork:aimeeyork

I have the same problem!!! We are remodeling our house this summer and we are tearing out all of our carpet. I'm wanting hardwood in the living room and kitchen. Should we carpet the bedrooms? Can anyone tell me if the hardwood floors are colder in the winter?

No, hardwoods are not colder in the winter. The only difference I noticed was that my feet hurt when I walked barefoot on them for an extended period of time. That was because I was so use to carpet. I usually wear slippers or sometimes I just go barefoot without a problem now.
Hardwoods are so much cleaner (even with new carpet) and so easy to take care of. Our bedrooms are carpeted and I like that because they are on our third level. (I don't want company to hear me walking when they are on the second level).

Make sure you get REAL hardwood. Don't get the fake stuff.
They are worth the money!!

I wouldn't put hardwood in the kitchen unless you finish it with Verathane or some other polyurethane finish. One dropped pot of soup and those wood floors are toast!

Hardwood floors are colder than carpet, warmer than tile. The solution is to put underfloor heating in the bedrooms that you can turn on in the colder months. We just have a few little oriental rugs in the bedroom next to the bed.

This house had a slab floor covered with a relatively new carpet when we bought it. But the previous owner obviously knew little or nothing about cleaning up after his dogs, and the carpet was stained and rank-smelling...so bad that MY dog thought it was the doggie toilet! We took it out and put in oiled French oak. It has been three years and the floor is just lovely. We clean it by hand rubbing it with teak oil (I have a maid...if you don't have one, I STRONGLY recommend a polyurethane finish that can be mopped like tile!).

I have had hardwood floors for more than 30 years, always with at least one house dog. They are warm and beautiful, but require more upkeep than tile or vinyl...but I think they are less work that wall-to-wall carpeting, especially if you have dogs and/or kids.

My hardwoods are on the second level, that's probably why they are not cold. If your house is on a cement slab, they probably would be cold.

It probably depends on the climate you live in as well. My brothers in Florida so the tile floors probably help him to keep the house cooler in the hot summer months. I live in Illinois but on a basement so my floors stay pretty warm. Whenever I sweep the floors and see some of the dust bunnies I always remind myself if it was carpet most of that dust would be stuck down in the carpet.

Wow your house sounds like a mansion compared to mine! We bought our house because of the property. We have 2.4 acres and we have 2 fishing ponds. I didn't look at the house... My hubby was a general contractor at the time..So I thought..who cares what it looks like, he can fix it up. Well it's 1300sq ft. Our last house was 2500sq ft. When we moved in, I cried for hours...Then a year later my husband got sick..So we are stuck in this dump:eek: I'm hoping he can handle doing the remodel. I'm also sick. We're depending on our friends for free labor. Keeping my fingers crossed:cool:

We ripped up all our carpet and put down the solid vinyl. Looks just like hardwoods but it is pretty much indestructible. With 5 furbutts and grandkids, this new floor is perfect for us! We are currently ripping out the bedroom carpet (any carpet is a personal pp pad to my little brats!!) and the upstairs AND stairs will also be in the solid vinyl. We have allergies and the carpet just holds too much dust and dander. I love the clean look of the floors now and the girls haven't had any accidents on it. :cheer:

I have hardwoods and love them, I have never had a problem with urine staining.

Hardwood floors are the way to go. I've had them in all my houses and would never go back to carpeting. The floors have never been scratched by our yorkies, and cleanup is a breeze. Not to mention allergies. So many more advantages over carpeting.

Your so lucky to have hardwood floors under that carpet. We tore our carpets out and paid a kings ransom to have hardwood floors put in. The hardwood floors are much more sanitary. Carpet holds odors in no matter how often they are cleaned. ;)

definitely hardwood over carpet. carpet is so much more harder to clean compared to wood. also hardwood floors, even if you have them refinished, will add a lot more value to your home :):thumbup:

We made the jump from carpet to wood floors about two years ago and have never been happier. I didn't notice how much better the house felt and smelled without the carpet. It can hold odor that you don't even realize is there. And, while Silvia constantly had accidents on the carpet because it held the smell, she rarely has an accident on the wood, I guess because the smell doesn't linger. I don't think you can go wrong with wood. Depending on the color of the wood, urine will most likely not stain it.

We have a lot of tile. We plan to eventually eliminate all the carpet. Even the bedrooms. Too dusty!

Hardwood, especially if it is already there under the carpeting. Hopefully it is still new looking, and has several coats of a finish protecting it. If you wipe of the urine relatively quickly, it will not stain at all. If you have a large dog, it will stain if it sits a real long time, but rememeber, you can always sand and refinish it. WOOD!