Bamboo wood flooring. Love it. I also have an area rug that gets vacuumed regularly.

What are your allergies? Mine are dust, mold, etc. The wood floor has really helped me. I also don't have any draperies in my bedroom, or foo-foo throw pillows, or bed skirt - that helps enormously. It may not be the best dressed master on the block, but I sleep better!

Chic, we didn't do it to handle allergies, but that proved to be a fab side-effect. In 2004, we replaced carpet with wood floor, not only in master bedroom, but down the hall, Living room, dining room. I was just sick of looking at the crappy carpet the PO had put in the house just before we bought. And my dog thought it was a giant pee pad. Housebroken in our other place, she completely reverted the day we moved in. Amazingly enough, she does not view wood or tile floor as a potential restroom and my allergies are so much better too.

Wait. Hmmmmmm......... Maybe I was just allergic to doggie-pee?

Red

I have HW flooring. We are not using HW for allergies. We are using them because of our cats. They seem to like to get sick in the middle of the night on our BR floor. I got tired of stained carpets. We are very happy with HW and have it in most of our house.

Maple floors, wished I had put them in the other bedrooms when we built - oh well we're doing it now. No bedskirt, no toss pillows. I have roller blinds and machine washable drapes. I'm planning to add leather chairs by the fireplace althought I do have a linen upholstered bench at the end of the bed. All bed linens are washed in hot water weekly.

Sky

Oak hardwoods

Oak hardwood.

Recycled oak floors in all the bedrooms but one (combination guest room/study/treadmill room), which like the rest of the house is stained concrete. All so easy to keep clean. If the oak floors get a scratch, I just rub it out with Danish oil.

We've never had carpet in this house but do have a lot of wool kilim rugs, which don't collect much dirt or hair because they're flat.

But I think the most effective thing against allergies is the air filter and dehumidifier built into the HVAC system. It runs on a timer most of the day even when we're not using any heat or AC, like now.

Oak hardwood floors in all bedrooms here (actually, hardwoods in most of house except where there's stone in the foyer, bathrooms and laundry rms.)

This house had AprilAire media filters, the same as we installed in a previous house, and we've since added an AccuClean system to the HVAC unit that didn't have the AprilAire. I agree that keeping humidity relatively low and using good filters goes a long way to managing allergies.

We put maple floors in all the bedrooms. I was going through a really bad spell of hives and asthma and I think it's really helped.

So, hardwood, eh?

I have really, really severe allergies to all sorts of things, but at the moment, it's mold that's causing the problems (it's my worst one... that and dust).

Our bathroom had a couple of minor problems which turned into a wonderful opportunity for mold to colonize. It's moved beyond the bath and into the bedroom, though. It doesn't bother DH, but it only takes about 5 minutes for me to start coughing and hacking, and about 20 minutes to start drowning.

I'm sleeping in the LR now. DH is replacing our bathroom faucet.

I think we just have to rip out the carpet. There's really nothing else we can do. Vacuuming at this point will just make things worse.

chickory: We have oak hardwood also, though a laminent would have the same effect if that works with your budget better. Really, the most effective thing for dust is to address your bed. Encase all matresses and pillows in allergy control casings (you can even get at LNT, JCP, etc, now). Wash all bedding including comforters, blankets, etc. in hot water at least every two weeks. We also have an air cleaner, but before that DH would religiously change the HEPA filter once a month. For mold, I agree check into any leaks as well as window condensation, etc. Also remove any plants from your house--or at least the bedroom. Only clean/vacuum your room in the AM--as it takes hours for the dust to settle down again and you don't want that when you are trying to sleep. Have you considered allergy shots (immuniotherapy)? I did it for about 10 years and now I am allergy free with no rhinitis and no meds (though still have sensitive skin).

Val, thanks for the tip about vacuuming in the AM. I'll give that a try from now on.

I worried about VOCs, and DH and I also considered low VOC vinyl composition tiles made to look like cork.

I'd love ceramic, but DH just won't have it.

Our bed is a monster, sort of, so trying to figure out what will be the best floor to support it is trying.

We also looked at glue-down cork, but I worried about the VOC content on the backing.

I'm not that VOC nuts generally, and I own things with particle board, but flooring... not so easy to freecycle if it doesn't work out.

chicory, getting that carpet out of the bedroom will be the best thing you ever do for yourself, I promise! We have hardwood and once our carpet was yanked the difference in how I felt was dramatic. (What's under carpet will really gross you out, too. Piles of very fine dust under ours, in major walk areas. Gag! And I steam cleaned it religiously!)

Whatever you choose, I know you'll feel better without the rug. ;)

Chicory, I am also worried about VOC's since I have become highly allergic to particle board and formaldehyde. I would like to consider replacing my carpet that I steam clean several times a year with Oak or Maple Hardwood floors. If finances were not so tight, I would have done it a long time ago.

Well, we've decided to do wood, BUT we will have to wait a while. We have a hallway, dressing area, and a study that all butts to an existing oak floor. We'll probably pick a similar floor, but we will shop around and think about it for a bit. I'm not about to lay my own wood floor over 600 or 700 sq. ft., so we'll have to save for installation too. We want to be able to pull out all the stops for this floor. It might even have to wait until I go back to work. : ( I'd love to have a herringbone pattern. : )

In the meantime, we'll keep things very clean and in the summer, we'll rip out the rug and have it hauled away.

Our interim floor (and this is really fun) will be epoxy. There is a no VOC formula that looks very similar to terrazzo when it cures. That should be fun to play with. It's nuts, I know, but at least it will seal up the plywood so I can keep it clean for the next year or so. I'll just plop down a few area rugs and have them hauled out for cleaning a couple times a year.

Wanna help pick colors?? : D

Moonshadow, I can't wait to get this yucky garbage out of here. I'm absolutely sure I'll feel like a million bucks living without all this grotesque dust catcher outta here.

chicoryflower, you can get cork in floating boards. I have that throughout my house, over a thin foam underlayment, over concrete. It's very pretty, and warm and soft underfoot.

I think you're supposed to seal it, which might offgas, but I never bothered. I just sweep it, Roomba it when I get around to it, and/or Scooba it. I have a housecleaner once a month, and he uses vinegar to mop it. As long as you wipe up moisture reasonably quickly it's fine.

As far as other allergy issues, I have an air filter in the room, a latex mattress which is supposed to be hypoallergenic, and very little other "stuff" in the room. I fear I need to get rid of my wonderful down duvet, though, as my tolerance for it is dropping.

In the meantime, are you using allergy protection with your bedding? You'll notice a huge difference just using a pillow protector and mattress cover for allergies. I found some good ones at JC Penney, they aren't the crunchy/crinkle vinyl kind (those crack/split). Mine are zippered, they have the allergen barrier fabric (like a vinyl mesh, lots of give to it) as the inner layer and outer layer is cotton. I use those on pillow cases and mattresses.

Morfydd, I can't take down at all. My husband has a pillow and it's just this toxic object in my life.

I don't have an air filter, but I'll likely get one at some point. We have a pretty decent whole house filter, but we don't have an intake in our room, so it's sort of a moot point, I think (no ventilation expert).

We looked at cork, but the backing is usually particle board and I'm sure it would have some formaldehyde going on. For the price of the stuff that's guaranteed to be low/no VOC, I can get oak, but I would love cork slab in the bath. : )

We're not super neat and tidy people, so I really need pretty solid surfaces in my world. We'd have to seal the heck out of anything we install.

we have ceramic tile pretty much throughout our home and it's a killer on the knees and feet. Given your fibro diagnosis adding ceramic tile might be inviting new pain. I am having serious regrets about all the tile, but it is what it is and we aren't about to change it now. I've just spent lots of money on rugs.

Hardwood - oak through the entire house with tile in the bathroom. I have kilm runners which get vacuumed and being flat do not collect much. I use a meile hepa vacuum and have the iRobot for pick me ups. The HVAC people put installed the Aprilaire system and it really helps.

We actually have carpet -- it's a very low looped pile by Stainmaster with an upgraded mold-mildew resistent dense foam pad underneath. We have it professionally steam cleaned 2X year, we vaccuum every day with a roomba (can vaccuum without having to be there -- love that), and we keep a hepa air filter near the bed. Most importantly, though, we wash the bedding (blankets, sheets and coverlet) every week and don't keep plants or books or magazines (other than what's sitting on the nightstand to be read) in the bedroom. We also have an allergy/waterproof mattress cover and zippered allergy covers for the pillows that get washed every week. We replace pillows once every year or two to cut down on dust mites.