Carpet replacement

[Deleted member 49549]

The carpet in our living room is getting a little tired. Having two young children hasn’t helped....
Instead of laying another carpet, I am looking for suggestions for alternatives.
Idont want to spend too much as we will be extending the house and changing the downstairs layout in a couple of years. I want something durable amd easily cleaned. It also needs to be nice to sit on directly as I spend a lot of time on the floor playing with the kids. Perhaps laminate or vinyl flooring may do the job if they can be soft on knees and elbows!

ps room is around 8x4 m

 

[lindsay]

Buy some rugs. They can be as cheap or expensive as you wish, but are portable, washable, storable, and comfortable.
You can hide the tired carpet with them, until you are ready to do the whole downstairs.

I'm a great believer in rugs.

 

[cambsno]

Carpet is warmer so better for wintertime. Rugs are a good idea, if you are planning in changes in next few years then I would probably stick with it - getting laminate is good but pay for quality, we had ours done over 10 years ago and aside from a few scratches from furniture has not aged at all.

 

[troutfisher]

If you go down the vinyl/laminate route you will have to lift the carpet , underlay and the grippers. Then fit the vinyl which if its in one piece is going to be a two person job. A quick look on carpetright suggests you could be paying £15-20 per sq m so 32 sqm ain,t cheap for what is going to be a temp job and it will be cold and noisy when you are playing on it.
Go to Ikea and buy a couple of rugs https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/large-medium-rugs-10692/

 

[lindsay]

I've bought some really cheap but pretty nice fake chinese and persian carpets on ebay, they do the trick and look nice despite being cheap machine-made stuff

 

[Sky]

Rugs can look nice, but they are the number one trip hazard to cause accidents in the home.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

After we had some minor flooding, we replaced the carpets with commercial quality carpet tiles. The insurers were quite happy for us to spend up to their assessment of the value so we have a stock of spare tiles if required. Tough and comfortable for sitting on, too.

 

[Tigger.ufo]

Laminate is VERY hard on knees and bums! ... and noisy too ...

Another vote for rugs here ... especially as you are looking at changing things in a while.

 

[Cartus]

I went for Karndean vinyl 'planks' for the whole of the downstairs of my house and managed to pick up a 3m x 4m rug from my local auction sale room which sits in the middle of the room with furniture on it.

The vinyl is very durable, hygienic and with the rug on it, comfortable plus I’ve never once tripped on it.

 

[Tringa]

The carpet in our living room is getting a little tired. Having two young children hasn’t helped....
Instead of laying another carpet, I am looking for suggestions for alternatives.
Idont want to spend too much as we will be extending the house and changing the downstairs layout in a couple of years. I want something durable amd easily cleaned. It also needs to be nice to sit on directly as I spend a lot of time on the floor playing with the kids. Perhaps laminate or vinyl flooring may do the job if they can be soft on knees and elbows!

ps room is around 8x4 m

Agree about rugs.

They are relatively cheap and can be used to cover the worst bits of the carpet and very easy to use.

The drawbacks are
the trip hazard for a while, but people get used to them fairly quickly,
they can 'walk' when laid on top of a carpet, so tacking down might be necessary, and
if they are needed close to a door you might have to adjust the height of the door.

Carpet tiles have been mentioned above and they are also good, though perhaps a little tougher than rugs.
Bought new they can be quite expensive but if you have any secondhand shops that deal with office furniture close to you, have a look there. When offices are refurbished the tiles find their way to secondhand shops where they are usually fairly cheap.

Dave