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Flooring Design Dilemma Bedroom

What are pros and cons between hardwood and carpet flooring in bedroom

5 years ago

Remodellng upstair bedrooms (not the master). One will be for the grandkids, the other for guests (like their parents:) One bedroom is over the main foyer, the other over our family room. I'd like to put in carpet flooring simply because it will dampen sound. My husband leans toward hardwood for

less dust, etc. Any thoughts?

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Comments (5)

PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
5 years ago
Hardwood with area rugs hands down especially withkids .
SJ McCarthy
5 years ago
Carpets are warm and quiet underfoot. The noise dampening of carpet is not to be under estimated. Carpet prevents noise from moving OUT of a room and into another room as well as prevents noise ENTERING from underneath (ahem...the family room).

That being said, the carpet is NOT the part that offers the noise reduction....it is the HIGH END PAD that offers the noise reduction. To get the noise reduction properties of carpet, you have to work with a more expensive carpet pad. Simply throwing down commercial grade berber over plywood (as an example) will not offer any form of acoustic properties.

A hardwood floor can be used to reduce noise with SEVERAL requirements being Added to the installation. Of course, first and foremost the subfloors for those bedrooms need to be assessed to ensure a happy install. You might find that the hardwood install requires a LOT more preparation (ahem...costs and materials) than you anticipated.

OK, assuming things are ready to role without much effort (rarely happens but let's just play along for a moment) the hardwood will need an acoustic underlayment (such as 6mm or 12mm cork underlayment). It is the underlayment (again...it is all about what sits UNDERNEATH the floor) that absorbs the noise, not the wood itself.

The underlayment can add 1/4" (6mm) or even 1/2" (12mm) worth of floor-height raise onto a hardwood that might already be 3/4" thick. Oh dear. Check your door clearance. Most doors can handle a floor that is (roughly) 3/4" thick. That means most interior doors can handle 3/4" hardwood or a thick carpet + thick pad or even laid tile (can sit roughly 3/4") without having to remove/trim and rehang the darn things.

But let's imagine this isn't going to be so easy. Let's imagine the hardwood needs a STIFFER subfloor which might mean another 1/2" of plywood. And now you want to add in 1/4" of cork for noise dampening. And then you choose a 3/4" solid hardwood. Uh Oh. You have just added 1 1/2" worth of floor height in those rooms. Hmmmmmm. Now the doors have to be trimmed and rehung. Oh wait and now the hallway floor sits REALLY low which means a BIG transition in the doorways.

Whew. A beautifully thick carpet and thick pad will max out at 3/4". Doors and baseboards should be able to handle that thickness without much issue. The real trick will be the hardwood.

What is the flooring OUTSIDE the bedrooms? What is currently INSIDE the bedrooms? What are your door clearances CURRENTLY sitting at? What is the subfloor thickness? How much noise enters/exits those rooms with the current set up?
hgjm thanked SJ McCarthy
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Hardwood, no question. The happiest day of my home decorating life in this house was the one last summer in which my son ripped out the LAST of the wall-to-wall carpet, in his bedroom, and laid hardwood. Now I have wood in the foyer, LR, DR, hall and all 3 bedrooms. As many others have pointed out it is far easier to keep clean, and I love the clean spare appearance of the wood floors. My son also ran the flooring directly through the hallway and into the bedrooms so there are no thresholds and it makes the space look larger. Someday when I do a full remodel of my kitchen I'll continue the same wood flooring into there and the back contiguous hall. A few months ago as a stopgap we pulled up the horrible homeade vinyl floor in there and laid a laminate floor that looks similar to the wood, just a lot less expensive. My goal is that the only non-hardwood flooring in my house will be tile in our florida room, which is a separate (added-on before we bought the house) space. Hardwood rules! Ann
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Landlord, I'll chime in on your apartments. I don't know anything about Terrazo, but we ripped out the carpet in our apartments and put in hardwoods in the living room areas and upstairs hallways. We left carpet in the bedrooms for sound, and on the stairs for sound and safety. We also were tired of having to recarpet every couple of years, as people absolutely destroyed decent carpet. We put in prefinished hardwoods ourselves (DH has a handyman business), and I love how easy it is to clean up. We had some damage to one area, but he just pulled out an area of boards and replaced them. They are no longer as sparkly as when they were new, but hey, it's an apartment. A bit costly up front, but the cost is more than recovered by the savings of a couple of recarpeting jobs. As an added bonus, the hardwoods in the upstairs hallway makes the carpeted areas totally separate. If one room needs to be replaced, we can do that with something that matches, without having to replace all of the carpet. This was a suggestion from our carpet installer.
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I had W2W carpet and now have LVP with area rugs. There are pros and cons to both. W2W: Pro: warm underfoot. Not a small consideration in winter, even in temperate Northern CA. Con: Dust sifts thru the weave and the paddings. In 10 yrs it'll be pretty disgusting how much allergy-causing dirt is hidden underneath, where you can't see it or clean it up, but your sinuses will know it's there. Pro: Vacuuming one consistent surface is easier than switching between smooth surface and area rugs. Con: Unless you get 'trackless' carpet, you and everyone else will see the impressions of feet and traffic patterns as soon as you put away the vacuum cleaner. Pro: A tip an estimator told me - even cheap carpet will feel better underfoot and last longer, if you pay for a good padding. He was right. Smooth surface: Pro: Easier to keep genuinely clean.... Con: .....BUT conversely you need to spend some time Swiffering dust up, either wet or dry, or both (I do both, in addition to vacuuming). Con: No matter what smooth flooring you pick, installation is the major cost and quality of your installer is critical. The majority of complaints here are from poor quality installs. Underlayments, transitions, layout design, picking the wrong flooring for your specific environmental conditions - if it can go wrong, somewhere and somebody has experienced that problem! Pro: A smooth surface flooring can show off a beautiful rug, or by itself be an important part of a room's decor, in a way a bland W2W can't do. The difference in the look of our MBR, when we changed from beige W2W to an LVP with a golden oak pattern, was actually a shock. We thought it would be nice, but it was SPECTACULARLY, noticeably better. Con: Even LVP is cool under foot, the way wood or sheet vinyl is, but not as bad as tile or stone. In summer it's great....not so much so in winter, LOL. HTH.
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In one word: Cork. Cork can be found in a floating floor plank. It comes in thicknesses between 10mm and 15mm (10.5mm - 12mm is common). I would figure out how HIGH the carpet stood and how much clearance the door has and work with those numbers. For instance, if your door has a snick more than 3/4" clearance, I would find a 10.5 or 11mm thick cork floating plank (7/16") and ADD 6mm cork underlayment (1/4") so that the TOTAL floor height is roughly 3/4" tall. Do that for ALL areas. I would then go ahead and add (so long as the cork allows it) a coat or two of protective finish like Loba 2K Supra AT. This coating adds SCRATCH resistance AND slip resistance (it has some of the best anti-slip ratings on the market). It ALSO adds moisture resistance...such as when a leaking pet (or human...spills happen) accidently loses control, the finish on top will prevent permanent damage to the planks. The cork will mimic the carpet absorption. Not quite perfect but very very close. You will still hear the deep thud of HARD footsteps (like thumping out of bed in a huff...whhhhhhaaaaaaat???Teenage girls NEVER do THAAAT ;-P www.icorkfloor.com Have a look. It can't hurt. If nothing else, it gives you a GREAT place to purchase 6mm or 12mm cork underlay for laminate. LVP does NOT like underpad. LVP will mimic what you hear RIGHT NOW. It doesn't like underpad. So much so that most Condo boards do NOT allow LVP in living areas because of noise complaints.
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tatts
5 years ago
Have you never in your life noticed the differences between the two? Does this really have to be explained?
PRO
Oak & Broad
5 years ago
Sophie is that you? :-D
PRO
essentials inside
5 years ago
Carpeting is warmer if there is a basement under the bedrooms. But do prefer hardwoods.

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