Carpet vs. Hardwood: Understanding What’s Best for Kids’ Rooms
When picking out flooring for your house, factors like moisture, weather, pets, and easy cleaning are all essential to the equation. However, several other conditions make flooring more perplexing for a kid’s room. Especially if you’re choosing between carpet and hardwood, here are some components to consider to ensure your child’s room fits the whole family’s needs.
Wood Flooring
Though wood might not be the softest or comfiest for young children, there are plenty of advantages to purchasing hardwood.
The most evident reason for choosing hardwood is its simplistic maintenance. Sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming wood floors is relatively simple, while most dirt and grime will have trouble staining the wood’s facade. Since we all know kids can get messy and are prone to spilling, laying down wood flooring instead of carpet can save tons of cleaning time.
Installing hardwood can also benefit kids who have dust or pollen allergies. With carpeting, common allergens are more prone to stick in the fibers, making them harder to remove. If your children have sensitive sinuses, leaning towards hardwood could be a better move for a clean bedroom.
Though hardwood doesn’t get as dirty as carpet, it can’t endure harsh scratches and scrapes like other flooring. If your kids like to roughhouse or enjoy ample playtime, purchasing wood with a durable finish is absolutely essential. Buying pretreated flooring is relatively simple, with many different finished hardwood options available on the market. If you do purchase untreated wood, you can always apply a finish after it’s installed, though it takes more work and time to execute.
Laminate Flooring
An alternative to wood flooring is laminate, which often appears like regular wood. Laminate is relatively affordable, easy to install, and has varying designs and finishes. If you are against wall-to-wall carpeting, but wood flooring isn’t an option, leaning towards laminate could be a great substitute.
One of the only drawbacks to laminate flooring is its thinness. Hardwood’s thick planks prevent noise from permeating through the floors, while laminate doesn’t have that same effect. You might hear your kids running around in their bedroom if you decide to install laminate. If your kids are rowdy, putting down high-grade underlayment can improve noise reduction coming from their rooms.
Carpet Flooring
Carpet is an obvious go-to for a children’s bedroom due to its comfort and safety. Especially for young children, carpet provides a secure playspace for crawling, curiosity, and general rowdiness. If you’re concerned that harder floors might lead to an injury, installing carpet might be your best bet. Carpet is an imperative tool for sound insulation, as well, and helps keep noise levels to a minimum in your home.
As stated previously, a carpet’s main drawback is its cleaning difficulty. If your children like to bring food and drinks into their bedroom or play outdoors consistently, excessive dirt and general spills may provide immense flooring issues. If keeping your kids’ floors clean is crucial to you, then choosing something that doesn’t stain easily might be a better option.
Buying an area rug could also be the answer if you’re between wall-to-wall carpeting and wood. Providing a smaller, soft carpet can reduce the amount of weekly cleaning while ensuring your kids’ bedroom is comfortable. Area rugs come in infinite shades, textures, designs, and shapes, so tailoring the flooring’s aesthetic to the bedroom will be a reasonably simple task.
No flooring option is inherently wrong for a kid’s space, but it’s essential to determine your criteria to build your optimal bedroom. Discussing factors like noise levels, comfort, and cleanliness will definitely help narrow down your flooring options.