Flooring Carpet vs. HW

[Greg Cuetara]

the LOML has decided that we need to move the house around a bit. We have been living on the first floor pretty much exclusively since we moved in. We have a second floor with two bedrooms and a small reading nook with a hallway. The first floor we have red oak hardwood floors, 2 1/4" wide...typical hardwood install. In the bedrooms on the first floor we have carpet.

Now the question. We have carpet on the second floor but it is about 30 years old and will need to be replaced before we move. Since we are planning on taking over the second floor right now we thought it would be nice to redo the floors and use them before we move. In terms of resale value are carpets or HW in bedrooms more valuable / desired?

We were thinking of putting down bamboo HW all through the upstairs and if we do that not sure if there is a problem with the red oak stair treads on the stairs and the transition to bamboo on the floor.

Any thoughts on Carpet vs HW in bedrooms and resale value or the transition between RO stair treads and bamboo flooring?

Thanks,
Greg

[Joe Pelonio]

Everyone seems to prefer hardwood over carpet these days. In addition, it's cheaper for a buyer to carpet over hardwood
than to pull up carpet and do new hardwood so the value is a lot better. As for the transition, since it's the stairs that are different it shouldn't make much difference. While I really like bamboo, it is a little more limited in desirability compared to
oak and other woods.

[Jamie Buxton]

I have friends with a bamboo floor in their kitchen, about five years old. They say it is the one big mistake they made in the remodel. It shows scratches and dings, and it scratches easily. They have oak floors elsewhere in the house, and much prefer that.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Right now hardwood sells.
Hardwood floors had always been a plus to have, but, now they are close to being a requirement.

W/so many houses on the market and so few buyers - you need eveything you can get to make your place better than the dozen or so others.

Bamboo would be a mistake at this point IMHO.
There's too few prospective buyers as it is. Something like bamboo will limit an already small pool of buyers even more.

[Joel Goodman]

If you have strip oak downstairs I would continue it upstairs if you can afford to. The beauty of old fashioned hardwood flooring is the ability to sand /refinish down the road. All the engineered products have IMHO a limited lifespan and value. I would hope a discerning buyer down the road would see that too.

[Rick Moyer]

I love hardwood and tile, but something else to think about: hardwood on a floor overhead is going to be loud down below when someone is walking around on it, especially with leather soles or heels.

[Myk Rian]

Area rugs and runners on top of hardwood make for some beautiful floors.

[Greg Cuetara]

Thanks for the thoughts so far. I went out to the flooring store yesterday and got a few samples to take a look at and discuss with the LOML. I got a sample of some darker bamboo and it actually looks pretty nice....$$$ is an factor here and the bamboo is a lot cheaper. Got a lot of cleaning to do before we can lay floor though.

greg

[Jerome Stanek]

have you checked what is under the carpet? It could be that there is some nice oak flooring there.

[Steve Griffin]

Just to be different, I vote for carpet. Our new addition will have carpet in the bedroom zone, hardwood everywhere else.

It's cheap and 10 times more comfortable on bare feet, which is my footwear of choice in the bedroom.

Drop the selling price the same amount as the you save on the floors, and it will sell just as fast.

[Greg Cuetara]

Jerome. Already had that thought and so I took up a few corner pieces and just saw plywood. I plan on ripping up a little more before I make any HW purchase though.
Greg

[Van Huskey]

We love our bamboo. I can't speak to the quality of their hardwoods but builddirect.com has excellent bamboo and their prices even shipped are hard if not impossible to beat quality for quality. One thing about bamboo is the since it is an engineered product the quality varies wildly and there are many different kinds. The good stuff looks great and wears well, the poor stuff looks like garbage from the second it hits the floor. At least when we looked the Lumber Liquidators bamboo (even their most expensive) was pretty poor.

[Ben Hatcher]

I like the bamboo floors I put in. I did the carbonized strand woven stuff from builddirect. The specs put it a bit harder than red oak. I have no dents in 3 years. The only downside I see to them is that they splinter like crazy when cutting and installing. I wouldn't suggest wood in bedrooms other than a master bedroom. It is loud and cold.

[Larry Edgerton]

Trends change, sometimes just for the sake of change, so if it is years out when you sell, who knows?

My current house is tile in every room in the interest of making my infloor heat work at its best. For where we are, nestled in a lot of huge pine trees it works out well.[pine pitch] The floors are warm of course so that is not a problem, but I am not getting any younger so the idea of carpet is appealing.

The house I am building now will have forced air heat, and so my flooring choices will be a mix of hardwood and carpet. Definately carpet in the master, and maybe in the living room as well. If I was doing a two story, the upstairs would be carpet.

Larry