Lots of people don't like carpeting but I prefer it in the living areas. Benefits:
Provides dampening of sounds
Not freezing cold on my feet
Comfy, welcoming and homely feeling (subjective)
Spills are very rare and permanent damage can, in most cases, be avoided by cleaning the mess properly right away. Carpeting should be shampooed once in a while too.
Carpeting does not last forever, however.
I can't stand carpeting on stairs though, such a pain to clean!
I'd take wooden/laminate floor over carpeting any day:
- it can be soundproofed,
- it can be floor-heated (but generally isn't that cold to begin with),
- maintenance and cleaning is really easy,
- potentially damaged areas can be fixed/replaced relatively easily (but greatly varies with the system and the mounting used),
- extremely pet-(hair-)friendly,
- very robot vacuum friendly,
- generally doesn't get affected that much with "clashes with my new x" issues (but that's individual, I guess),
- can be tastefully decorated and accented with smaller rugs,
- probably some other things I missed.
Basically, in my view, sans the "fluffy" feeling on one's feet, wall-to-wall carpeting is a nightmare, especially given the US prevalence of combining an inside carpet with outside shoes, which is in stark contract with majority of the rest of the world.
You aren't accident prone, or you don't have kids, or you don't host large holiday parties!
My floor gets spilled on all the time.
> I can't stand carpeting on stairs though, such a pain to clean!
I insist on carpet on stairs because of how often I slip and fall down the stairs (3 or 4 times a year, I'm not the most graceful person on earth), carpet keeps me from getting hurt too badly.
It is a pain to clean though!
I had vinyl floors in my previous place, much nicer to stand on for long periods of time vs hardwood floors. Really if it wasn't for the environmental and health downsides of vinyl, it'd be an ideal flooring material!
In a lot of counties, the building codes mandate a certain amount of carpet coverage in units that have downstairs neighbors. Where I live upstairs units frequently can only have hard flooring in the bathroom, entryway and kitchen.
And its amazing what an annual steam clean can do for keeping the carpet maintained.
Provides dampening of sounds
Not freezing cold on my feet
Comfy, welcoming and homely feeling (subjective)
Spills are very rare and permanent damage can, in most cases, be avoided by cleaning the mess properly right away. Carpeting should be shampooed once in a while too.
Carpeting does not last forever, however.
I can't stand carpeting on stairs though, such a pain to clean!