The Ladies’ Monthly on Home Improvements: Carpets to Hardwood

by Jenn Grimm

Hardwood flooring is easily maintained with regular waxing.

Ladies, it’s time to start thinking about some home renovations. And the one that should be on all women’s minds is of course flooring. Yes, flooring. It’s something you see and use every day of your life and you probably never give it more than a seconds thought throughout the day unless it gets splashed with unsightly goo or your man tracks some mud in from the backdoor.

Look at your floor. Look at it. Now think, how long have you had that exact same carpeting throughout your house? I can’t speak for all of you, but I would think a majority of you just answered ‘As long as I can remember’. I’m sure your man would probably say the same thing ladies, but he wouldn’t be as happy about it. Secretly and not so secretly, your man has wanted to get rid of the carpeting and have the two of you choose a nice hard wood floor to replace it. It would suit your place better, and you’ve long since gotten rid of the drapes. They don’t clash with the carpet, but really, it throws the whole room off when they don’t go well together.

This isn’t helped by the fact that even with being cleaned regularly, there are some stains that just won’t come out of any carpet, regardless of how many products Billy Mayes tries to sell you for it. That birthday party 3 three years ago, where your friend went down after a few too many drinks and took the crab dip with him? It’s still there. It’s not as bad as you first thought, but it’s still noticeable when you have company over. Not to mention your husband will quite often track dirt in from working out back. It’s really not worth the continued effort to clean the mud out of your carpet every couple of weeks. A clean, solid hard surface would be much easier to clean and you can more or less forget about stains. Dirt and crab sauce will clean right up.

God forbid you ever thinking of selling your place. It’s a big part of your life (And renting is out of the question), you and your man have done a lot there. If you did, however, choose to start showing it off on the market, ask anyone in the business, and they’ll tell you the size of the market of people interested in looking at carpeted places is niche at best. The buyers market has spoken, and barren floors free of dust and carpeting is what buyers demand from their units now.

Carpeting is something your mother and her sisters lived with in their day and age and as much as I want all Ladies Monthly readers to love and respect their mothers, times and traditions change. It’s not the 1970′s anymore. Shag carpeting is not stylish, at least not outside Japan, but then everything is just this side of weird there. As with all things style, Europeans started the trend and it has moved across the pond to the floors of our once heavily carpeted shores.

Don’t forget, once you’ve put down hard wood or marble flooring you don’t have to leave things plain and uninteresting. As much as the sheen of light bouncing of smooth marble or reflecting off of stained hardwood can be, maybe that floor doesn’t quite look right. Don’t tear it up and start over. That’s wasting time, money, and effort when the solution is a lot simpler than you think. I’ll bet your man or even your friends would really enjoy the vibe from a posh little throw rug. You can be as simple with a solid colour or go crazy with some kind of design, but that little rug can go a long way. You’ll get compliments on just how creative you are from friends and family. You might even inspire them to follow suit.