I have dark, coffee colour white oak floors. They were prefinished so I think they are a little more forgiving than than the poly-in place hardwood. Drips of coffee, pop, whatever can sit there and dry but they wipe up easily. That was a pleasant surprise.
We have two cats. I can swiffer-vac those floors every day! Footprints are an issue - wet socks leave a mess. Again, they wash up beautifully but still... moral of the story is go to a lighter (but not too light colour of wood).
I also have a wool rug in the study. It is black background and gold (I'm a sucker for punishment!). You can't use a beater bar on real wool, but it does seem to come up easily enough with the carpet tool. Also, my cats have both thrown up on it but it washes up well. You can't use a carpet shampooer on it, it has to be done professionally but even it wasn't wool, I wouldn't use a carpet shampooer on it without taking it out of the room - would ruin the wood underneath.
I used to have a cheaper, viscose rug in there but my son spilled some hot green tea on it. It didn't stain but the nap curled up like a bad perm! Strange!
I have a polypropylene oriental style at the front door which is really pretty, and washes up like a dream.
Rug people told me that you will never regret getting real wool and I think I agree now, but they are more $$$ and you should have them cleaned professionally. The only complaint I have is that it tends to "shed", which I was told is common with wool, at least for the first while.
Hope that gives a little insight.

We have 5 cats & 2 elderly dogs. Only 1 kiddo left at home but alot of family with children. We have 6" wide pine coated in Waterlox, I don't think I'd do anything else, it looks 100 years old. We stained it dark all over which was a big mistake downstairs! Not because of the marks but because of the dust/hair/dander...it really shows up big time. I use a large microfiber dry mop once a day to get it up, it's a PITA! So much so that this spring I'm going to sand it & do it a few shades lighter (bedrooms aren't as bad). Rugs downstairs? HAHAHAHA I give up!! I've already had to toss one huge expensive silk one. So these days, nothing goes down that can't fit in the washer (bigger ones at the laundrymat). Of course I don't buy expensive ones (just from Lowes) & dry them over the porch railings. If it can't be cleaned, it can't come in here, pretty much that's life on this here farm. One day I'll pretty shi-shi-poo-poo house (It has to happen, I dreamed about it!). Until then....it might not be expensive but it smells clean, looks clean & it's not too shabby looking.
KAT

I wanted to comment on wool rugs. While they are gorgeous and feel wonderful under foot, they do shed, I have had mine for 3-6 years and they are still shedding.

I agree with elsa about the color of the wood, the lighter you go the less "work" they seem to be. I have walnut stained maple throughout our house, I swiffer every other day and we dont have any cats but it shows dust, especially in the sunlight,but they are beautiful, I love them.

Yes, I do love hardwood floors. Pet hair is easy to pick up and I use a swiffer sweeper or broom every other day (two dogs with long hair). Our rugs are a combination-we have wall to wall in the basement-wish we had installed hardwood when we moved in rather than replacing the carpet. It is plush and soft,but on the rare occasions when the dogs get sick, they invariably do so down there and it is a pain to clean up without spots that show (it is a wool carpet). Upstairs (main floor), we have some very good rugs and several middle range rugs. The synthetics can be cleaned in place, but the wool rugs need to be sent out for professional cleaning. I am able to spot clean them and we vacuum regularly. I would not recommend tufted rugs because they begin to look shaggy/messy, although you can cut the pulls off. Knotted rugs, whether hand or machine knotted will look better and last better IMHO. Hand-knotted, however, can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars for low end ones-well worth it if you can afford it, but I also have one machine knotted that looks perfect after 30 years with kids and dogs.

Shee, my cat's hair (three of them) never show up on the dark floor, but it does on the chairs. My dog sheds all year long and I use a big dust mop or vacuum quite often, especially where light shines on the floor.

I have a wool Persian and a Dyson. They're fine. I also live in the country but the persian is located in the back center of the room where it doesn't get regular foot traffic.

I have two long runners in the house too, and what's so funny is when the cat's come in from outside with muddy paw prints, they walk around the runners! lol

Oak is great for hiding marks-- lighter is better for hiding marks, and not shiny (dull finish is better for not showing marks) !!

Love our oak floors...medium tone. Never look dirty...have handled two cats and two childrensince we bought the house 13 years ago. (And one of the cats horked a LOT before we figured out he was hyper thyroid.)

Kids are in college and grad school now...and here are the floors...

That is an un-retouched photo from about a year ago. (I've moved stuff around a bit since.)

Only thing I do to the floors is coat 'em with Bona's floor refresher every couple of years.

4 Siamese cats here, and that's one of the things I love about my hardwood floors....cleaning up after fur ball accidents is such a breeze. I've heard that dog claws can do a number of hardwood floors, but don't know. Obviously cat claws are so small, there is no problem at all.

Regarding Oriental rugs: All of mine are hand-knotted, purchased overseas, and are of very fine quality. I use my Miele vacuum on the carpets because I can reduce the suction so that it is not destructive to the carpet or the fringe. I've heard that Dyson has a very strong suction...if it can't be significantly reduced, I'd be reluctant to use it on a good quality hand-knotted Oriental carpet.

The funny thing about the cats is that 90% of the time, when they upchuck, they do it on the wood floor, not the carpet. So cleaning up has been a huge improvement.

wow Beth, how did you train your cats to upchuck on the wood floor? I keep telling mine to use the hard surfaces not the carpet, but that tends to fall on deaf ears.

We have hardwod throughout and I wouldn't give it up in a heartbeat solely because it is soooooooo much easier to care for w/ 3 kids 6 and under, at one time 5 cats (down to ur last senior cat now) and up to 6 large dogs all at one time. We used to board dogs in our house so between all of the ancient cats, kids throwing up, spilling everything and just plain throwing food, scared pups in a new place having accidents (kids too during potty training) and enugh hairballs to sell off as low maintenance puppies you'd have to pry my hardwood floors out of my cold dead hands!

I have a few large cheap area rugs and that's fine for now and someday when I'm in my forever MBR I will have really good wall to wall carpet but that's the only place I can imagine it.

I think a portion of the hair in my carpets sticks there permanently. No matter how often I vacuum I will never get it all off of a carpet but I can be sure to get it all off of a hardwood floor. Much easier to keep clean IMHO!

We love our hardwood. I would never, ever go back to carpet. Hard surface floors are just so much cleaner than carpet. I remember years ago when we pulled up carpet and replaced with wood flooring (previous home), the stuff in the backing of the carpet. And I was pretty on top of things with vacuuming the carpet, not to mention, we had an excellent vacuum. No matter what, dust, dirt, etc. gets trapped down in the base of the carpet. I also think hardwood is so much easier to care for.

We have light to medium oak floors. Not shiny, but not the completely flat finish - more of a matte with a bit of a sheen. We don't have children and only one small dog who is extremely well trained. If it's wet out, I tell her to let me wipe her feet and she does. She's too little for her nails to make a difference on the floor and she doesn't shed, so no problem with those. She's only had a couple of *accidents* (when we were training) and they simply wiped up. We do have a protective finish of some sort. I personally like the patina of wood floors after they've been used for a few years. Ours are 11 years old - still look great. We have hardwood in the bedrooms also.

As for rugs, I am not a rug person. We use very few rugs on our wood floors. We like the wood and choose not to cover alot of it up. The ones we have, the pup has never bothered, and I vacuum them with a regular vac.

tina

Kim - You mentioned things I was worried about! lol You can put rugs (cheaper kinds) in the washer?

I never even thought about not being able to shampoo a rug on top of the hw. Duh. :) Our driveway is stones so that wouldn't work either. I guess I really need to check into if there's a place near us that does professional carpet cleaning and see how much it is.

Tina - That's cute your dog wipes her feet. Growing up we always wiped our dear Butch's feet. He was smart, we should've thought to train him with that!

If we got hw I was thinking oak, mid range color, and less shine would be best.

I bought a wool/silk rug for under the DR table back in October and didn't realize you shouldn't use a beater bar on it . . . For two months I ran my dyson over it often! I don't believe there's an adjustment for the suction. I now use the attachment and I find it to be somewhat of a pain. Doesn't help that the rug is mainly black, the cats like to sleep on it and the room gets a bunch of light. Our LR gets a bunch of light.

That being said I don't think I'll ever buy a tufted rug again. It's not too bad since it's only one but I believe future ones will be cheaper synthetic or I'll go the hand knotted way and be done with it. But I think I'd feel better when something happened to them if I didn't spend gobs of money as accidents happen, iykwim.

Heck, I've never had hw. Maybe I'll like it without rugs. Wouldn't that be easy. :)

So as long as there's a good protective finish on there my cat's occasional hairball being there all day while we're at work should be ok?

Honestly as far as cat hair, I'm not bothered by our vinyl floors. Well except by the side door where we're always in and out. The tiny stones get on my nerves.
Oakley you're right as far as it sticking to the furniture. I'm forever running the sweaper on it. I thought it was pretty good until this morning when I was reading in the bright morning sunlight! Eek. I wouldn't trade our cats for the world but I've about had it with all the fur at the moment.

I'm leaning toward hw I just needed to hear some thoughts. I'm nervous to spend the money and possibly not like them. I'm sure there's an adjustment period like anything else.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I really appreciate it.

Just my opinion: hardwood floors and area rugs are a pain in the butt. You end up with the cleaning problems of both.

With just hardwood, you can use a dust mop and pick up the balls of dog fur that float around the house and settle in the corners. With wall-to-wall, you vacuum and you are done, and then rent a rug shampooer or call in Stanley Steemer as needed.

But hardwood plus area rugs means two surfaces to clean. I started a thread on the cleaning forum that includes a discussion on my search for the perfect vacuum cleaner for hardwood and area rugs in a small house. Apparently there is no perfect machine.

And, yes, it can be very difficult to run a Dyson upright over a flat nap carpet such as an oriental. The suction is so strong you almost can't move the machine. Turning off the beater bar doesn't help; opening the air vent helps very little.

Here is a link that might be useful: My search for the perfect machine

I have all hardwood on the first floor. Every room!There is an olefin rug from Shaw in the foyer, the DR and the FR that I don't have to worry about or baby because it is synthetic. I have a one year old yellow lab that sheds like a mad man. Yes, when the sun streams in in the morning across my hardwood it drives me nuts, but then again, I use it as a reminder to vacuum. With all the snow, and soggy backyard and the need for the dog to go outside, I recently said I am so glad I have hardwood and not carpet because the carpet would be such a mess! Yes, I can see the paw prints when she comes inside with wet or muddy paws, but I know I can get out a damp mop and all will be well. I don't think I could say that if it was carpet. This summer I took my 8 x 10 rug outside onto the patio and used my Hoover Steam cleaner on it. It was a hot day and the rug dried pretty quickly. I brought it inside and put it back down knowing it was clean. I don't use the Hoover very often, but after training the new puppy, it needed it and it was easy to do myself! No matter what you choose there is work involved.

We have HW in the K, LR & Hall. It's been in almost a year now and I love it and wish we had done it sooner. DS was sick a few weeks ago and didn't make it to the bathroom on time. It was a horrible mess to clean but I can't imagine what it would have been like with carpet. Ugh.

And the kids have options... if dd wants to play with dolls, she goes to the area rug by the couch. If she wants to set up her barbie stuff, a hard floor is really nice to have. DS loves to run cars/trucks on them. I wish we'd had them when he was younger.

As for cleaning - we have no pets. I sweep a fair amount - especially in the K which is entry from the garage. We carry in a lot of sand this time of year (put out for slippery conditions). I vacuum our area rug once a week or so and I might also vacuum the HW on the hard floor setting as well. I use the steam cleaner (which I love) every few weeks or so depending.

I love that when I clean them, I know that they are clean and there's nothing lurking.

That said, some people hate them. A lot. :) So analysis before you do it is a good idea!

Graywings, we live with two cats, so there's plenty of hair. I've used a canister vacuum (Sears Progressive) for the past 10 years on the hardwoods and rugs. It has a Powermate for the rugs and a floor attachment for the hardwoods. I used to switch back and forth, now I basically use the floor attachment for both and save the Powermate for once in a blue moon. Have a Eureka stick vac for every day use on the kitchen hardwoods.

Had to replace the motor in the Kenmore because I was bad about overfilling the bags. Now I don't let them get more than half filled before replacing. Also had to replace the brush on the floor attachment. Overall, it's been a great vacuum for $300!

I have a new Dyson and while it has strong "suckage", lol, it moves easily.

Shee, doesn't your Dyson have a switch to turn the beater bar off? Mine does, but I've been using the beater bar. Glad to know I shouldn't!

The good thing about not having w-w carpet is you don't have to pull out the furniture to get the dust off. Unless you're the type that does that. Living in the country we (and you) probably get a LOT of dust, so wood floors makes cleaning easy.

Although I do like carpeting in the bedrooms and will keep our's.

As far as rocks go, we also have a rock driveway, and I have a waterhog at the front door, and a decent indoor mat to wipe feet on. I wouldn't worry about that. We did put tile in the entryway though, and we have a tray to put wet shoes in, it catches water from snow and rain.

"I love that when I clean them, I know that they are clean and there's nothing lurking."

EXACTLY!

tina

We have engineered hardwood every where except the master bath, and I'd never go back to carpet. Originally the house had wall to wall carpet everywhere except the kitchen. With 4 kids, 2 cats and 2 dogs, it was a constant battle to keep clean. Twice yearly I had to have it all steam cleaned, and that became a considerable expense. I even bought an Electrolux carpet shampooer so I could to do it myself when needed, which was much too often!!

We had the hardwood put in ten years ago and have never enjoyed anything more. It's a medium shade, and does show dog hair from the Westies, but a quick pass with the swifter will pick that up. If any of the pets make any type of mess, it's easy to wipe up with a damp towel - not possible with carpet. I do have some area rugs in the living, dining and bedrooms. I use my Dyson on both rugs and floor without problems anywhere.

My experience with cats..

Carpet will 'look' cleaner but even if you vacuum regularly, some hair will still be there. I bought a steam cleaner and almost died when I saw what was sucked up.. yuck!!!

Wood will definitely show the hair, but it can all be swept up. Throw up or other accidents is sooooo much easier to clean. I had a little urine problem on my old carpet and I could never get the smell out (through the carpet and pad etc) so my cat kept going in the same spot. I ripped it out and put in wood and never looked back.

I imagine if your future kids spill grape juice, it will be easier to get off of the floor than the carpet too.

Hardwood, hands down. I finally got rid of the last of my carpet a year ago-halleleujah. Have HW throughout the house except for laminate in the kitchen. And that will be matching HW when I remodel. Only bathrooms and florida room are non-wood and they are tile.

As everyone else has pointed out, I find wood much easier to get and keep clean. I will add that I think with hardwood as with so many other things in life, you get what you pay for. Mine is top quality engineered, and it doesn't scratch, stain or absorb water. Truly a fantastic surface. Would never, ever go back to carpet and only regret I didn't have the money to do the whole house in hardwood flooring when we first bought it. Took me 20 years to get it right!

Ann