I agree 100% on the counter tops. Stone countertops look great but I can never cook comfortably on them. One day I'd like to design my own house and the counter tops will likely be all stainless steel (like a commercial kitchen) with a section of butcher block.
I have a different opinion on carpets and hardwood floors. I find carpets hard to keep clean (especially from spills and hair) and after a while they just feel a bit gross underfoot. Now, new hardwood floors certainly give the impression of needing to be treated gently, but I think that's a consequence of every house being bought with "resale value" taking primacy over "homemaking". I have two kids and we live in a 90 year old house with the *original* hardwood floors. The floors were already pretty beat up when we moved in, so I don't really care how rough they are. I'm sure they've added some scratches to the already scratched floors. The floors are not shiny. They are not even. They are faded in many places. Most people would say they look ugly, but I think they look well loved. Well worn (but still sturdy!) materials should be a sign of a happy home, not a ding on the resale value. If I ever get to build that dream house I will probably try and use reclaimed wood floors and take an easygoing approach to scratches and dings. I want a sturdy but "well loved" house.
I agree with that a lot. I don't really like buying things or remodeling things, because you can only go down from there. Most of this stuff does not wear well. I kind of like the idea of inheriting something pleasantly dinged up - patina.
My house has a retro 60s kitchen with stainless steel countertops and I love it. So easy to clean. Perhaps I would opt for copper because of its beauty and disinfecting properties, but then you have tarnish issues.
One thing to note: metal does warp from heat, so you can get bowing if you expose it to boiling water, hot pots, etc.
Re: Your hardwood floors. It's not very expensive/difficult to sand them down and refinish them. My century-old wood floors were also rough (and hidden under hideous carpeting) when we bought the place, but they're good as new now.
I agree on the hardwood floors. I like the feel of carpet underfoot better, but it gets SO gross (especially with kids or animals - pet fur, dirt tracked in and ground in, juice, pee, vomit, the list is almost endless).
A large area rug is much easier to replace - or even to clean, if you get a washable kind.
And a hardwood floor in a kitchen/dining area is the right combo of forgiving surface (if something is dropped) and easy to clean.
1. We had kids with a mix of wood floors on most of the main floor, some rooms (and full upstairs) with wall-to-wall, and some rugs. Kids did fine on wood, but your point about rolling around on the floor does go better on carpet. One note: our kids loved a contraption that was a circular table with wheels and a 'seat' in the middle where they could stand and 'walk' while they were learning to walk. It rolled much better on wood. kids love to slide on their socks as well. I liked mixing it up.
2. If you do install rugs, don't 'rip out' the wood, just install wall-to-wall rugs on top. you can rip them out in 15 years (their rough lifetime) and the floors will be beautifully preserved.
3. I appreciate your comments on stone countertops. We are considering installing a slab of granite we got on auction, but considering all the angles.
Granite is work in terms of maintaining it, but it is lovely. I love the wood floors too, but wall-to-wall rug is an interesting idea. I don't think I've come across it. I would like to just get some nice area rugs for the main part of the floor, although we're having trouble finding any that are not very thin and cheap. I just want an area rug that feels like carpet, but most places don't seem to carry that.
Yes, cheaper than a “real” rug, our friends bought carpet that the carpet store was able to finish the edges, so it was basically a custom sized area rug. Good quality for the price compared to what you would find at the big box store.
I have a 4 year old and an 18 month old and can’t imagine preferring carpet to hardwood. Accidents, food spills, paint, crayon, kinetic sand, play dough, dirt, mud, mulch - all the stuff my kids track into the house is so much easier to clean off our wood floors than the sections of the house with carpet. Now porcelain tile on the other hand, despite being easy to clean and very durable, is not kid friendly because everything shatters.
We have wood floors and then we got a huge slobbery puppy that grew into a bigger shedding muddy pawed dog. I feel like I live in a barn.
Wood floors are great for racing cars and wind up toys with kids or puppies. We've been home bound due to flooding and Polly, our pyr/Akbash, played a rousing game of jacks with us on the floor.
I have a toddler (and a Golden Retriever) in a century-old house with (original) wood floors. Honestly, it's not a problem. Everyday, the lot of us are rolling around, running over, jumping on, crashing things upon, spilling onto, and generally abusing the floors. No major injuries. And the wood floors are fine. Why? Because we have (cheap) area rugs over much of them and because wood is easy to buff out and fix, if needed. Wood also looks fine when it's a little worn, as you mentioned.
By contrast, let me tell you a story about my own childhood with optic-white wall-to-wall carpet: Extremely NOT FINE. My poor mother was rug-shampooing, spraying (extremely toxic) carpet cleaners, and vacuuming those damned things constantly. Perhaps a more moderate tone would have been easier to clean, but this was the era of Kool-Aid, and Kool-Aid takes no mercy on any fabric. Oh, and, also, the rugs weren't even that cushion-y, and we boys still managed to hurt ourselves frequently on them, including some pretty gnarly rug-burns!
I think your general point stands: That the prerogative to have minimalist, modern interiors that are SPOTLESS creates a very uptight and inhumane living environment for people, generally, and especially families with children (or pets). And, it's even worse for most people who don't have your more quality, expensive wooden floors and quartz countertops. At least they're durable! Instead, the mass-market versions of contemporary interiors are both lacking in durability, difficult/impossible to repair, and unforgiving when they (inevitably) are scratched, smudged, dented, waterlogged, stained, and just worn.
We were about to have our 3rd child in this crazy market this year, so we went ahead and bought an old 1940’s home we could afford. It does have wood floors all throughout. The first thing we did was carpet the stairs to the second level (I mean, wow, what a hazard! For anyone, let alone children!) We have put down area rugs to have at least one soft landing/playing place in the toddlers’ bedroom & living room. But yes, having 3 boys in 3 years -- two of which love to run around in footie pajamas -- we’ve realized how amazing carpet is!! I will say, wood is annoying sometimes and yes slippery, BUT it actually has more give than other non-carpet floors. My in-laws have a nice home with CERAMIC TILE in the living spaces and I cannot relax there with babies or toddlers. :’)
We have tile in the little corridor bit leading to the kitchen from the garage, and that stuff is unforgiving. Freezing cold to stand on (it doesn't help it's right on the slab, no basement in that portion of the floorplan), very hard. Having ceramic tile even in the kitchen is too much but I've never even seen it in living room-type areas before!
My brother and sister in law have tile throughout the lower level of their home in the Houston area. My husband is from North Africa and every house I’ve ever been in was all tile (probably clay, not ceramic). Both are definitely climate related-tile stays cooler and is less responsive to humidity.
When I was a teen, my parents moved me to an upstairs bedroom in our house with black tile floors and wood panel walls. (Probably hadn’t been redecorated since the 1950s/1960s.)
I suppose it could have been charming, but those floors were FREEZING in the winter. Who wants to get out of bed in that situation?
My parents' house has a steep staircase with shallow (carpeted) stairs leading straight down to a CERAMIC TILE foyer. It is a death trap that haunts my thoughts every time I visit. Could you design an easier way for the elderly or children to die? I mean, hell, I've tripped up on those stairs enough to give myself pause...
I’m quite happy with our wooden floors. They have plenty of give and the noise helps us track our kids. What really seems painful and hard is laminate, faux wood flooring. I think carpet is great for a basement but otherwise would depend on rugs and foam mats for some extra warmth.
What I really object to these days is the style: all white, grey and industrial stainless steel. It seems very cold and inhuman and likely will be out of style in 10 years. Like you said , no room for children or clutter.
We had no choice but to go with warm colours in our house (light greens, yellows and beige) due to the older layout and fixtures, but we like it better anyway.
Our baby is now 9 months old and our apartment's hardwood floors are a source of stress. He is able to sit up but he sometimes topples over still, and if he happens to fall away from the blankets we put down or the rug that is on top, he hits his head and hurts himself. He is less able to freely explore his environment as a result. I used to love the aesthetics and cleanability of hardwood and now I'm starting to see the advantage of carpet.
1940's hardwood floors were nicely protected by wall to wall carpet. We refinished and did well with area rugs that are great for decorating and warmth. Three kids never missed a beat. Wood stairways need carpet for old dogs!!
Hi! Expecting mother here whose awareness of the danger/safety dichotomy of the surfaces in her century-old rental home has suddenly become very acute. Thank you for this piece, it’s quite timely.
My partner and I live downstairs in our home in a mostly-finished basement - carpet on top of raw concrete surrounded by the actual concrete walls of the foundation, which I recently painted. It looks much cuter than it sounds. Basement is a grand smallish space for little crawling people, aside from the very accessible wood stove in one corner...for which I haven’t yet come up with a solution, but friends have assured me that babies and wood stoves have coexisted for centuries so it can’t be that hard to manage? lol.
Linoleum in the shared kitchen, which I think is an underrated and under appreciated surface - ours is recent enough that I don’t worry about asbestos should scratches or lifting occur. We do however have ceramic tile countertops which is...grosser than it sounds. The hardness of stone which presents all the issues you’ve mentioned plus the nastiness of the difficult to clean, easy to neglect grout between the tiles. If it were our place we’d be replacing it with butcher block.
The rest of the main & upper levels are thin-plank hardwood, though the flooring in places is so worn and saggy I feel it’s a much softer and forgiving floor than traditional hardwood. Over top of nearly all the hardwood are these gorgeous area and runner rugs - an ex-girlfriend of our friend Lucas (who owns the house) had a grandfather who was an actual rug merchant? So our house has these amazing rugs she left behind when they split. I’m a fan of the rugs on hardwood because you get the soft play surface for little people and the ease of cleaning hardwood, with the option to swap out your rugs if they get ruined etc.
Those are my two cents! Your very thoughtful writing about home stuff and hypothetical kids is appreciated.
I find your comparison between quartz and granite interesting as I have the opposite position. As a person who frequently hosts guests, giving my kitchen heavy usage in bursts, having granite countertops saves me from worrying about placing hot pans, pots, bakeware on the counter. Thermal durability is a huge factor for me (that the countertops are black granite ameliorates my concerns over staining). The light color quartz in my hall bathroom has a multitude of small discolorations, principally from hot curling irons & one unfortunate incident with a clothes iron, though it's impervious to makeup stains.
Had both wood floors and stone countertops with kids. Did the floors get scratched? Yes, but I much prefer looking at a scratched floor than a stained carpet! The kids hurting themselves on the wood floors was honestly never an issue. We did use large area rugs in the family room. Trucks and trains go much faster and block towers are more stable (and fun to knock down) on a wood floor! Another major advantage for us with wood over carpet was that one of our children had pretty bad allergies and it’s much easier to keep a hard floor dust free than it is carpet. A tip for the dust you see on the wood floor: use a Swiffer (which also picks up cat hair better than sweeping).
I’ve had granite in two houses and I’ve never done an annual seal. Counters in house one looked as good the day we moved out as the day we moved in. We’ve been in our current house 7+ years and they still look brand new. I wipe them down with soap and water. I have a bottle of stone cleaner I use if I really want them to shine.
I agree 100% on the counter tops. Stone countertops look great but I can never cook comfortably on them. One day I'd like to design my own house and the counter tops will likely be all stainless steel (like a commercial kitchen) with a section of butcher block.
I have a different opinion on carpets and hardwood floors. I find carpets hard to keep clean (especially from spills and hair) and after a while they just feel a bit gross underfoot. Now, new hardwood floors certainly give the impression of needing to be treated gently, but I think that's a consequence of every house being bought with "resale value" taking primacy over "homemaking". I have two kids and we live in a 90 year old house with the *original* hardwood floors. The floors were already pretty beat up when we moved in, so I don't really care how rough they are. I'm sure they've added some scratches to the already scratched floors. The floors are not shiny. They are not even. They are faded in many places. Most people would say they look ugly, but I think they look well loved. Well worn (but still sturdy!) materials should be a sign of a happy home, not a ding on the resale value. If I ever get to build that dream house I will probably try and use reclaimed wood floors and take an easygoing approach to scratches and dings. I want a sturdy but "well loved" house.
I agree with that a lot. I don't really like buying things or remodeling things, because you can only go down from there. Most of this stuff does not wear well. I kind of like the idea of inheriting something pleasantly dinged up - patina.
My house has a retro 60s kitchen with stainless steel countertops and I love it. So easy to clean. Perhaps I would opt for copper because of its beauty and disinfecting properties, but then you have tarnish issues.
One thing to note: metal does warp from heat, so you can get bowing if you expose it to boiling water, hot pots, etc.
Re: Your hardwood floors. It's not very expensive/difficult to sand them down and refinish them. My century-old wood floors were also rough (and hidden under hideous carpeting) when we bought the place, but they're good as new now.
I agree on the hardwood floors. I like the feel of carpet underfoot better, but it gets SO gross (especially with kids or animals - pet fur, dirt tracked in and ground in, juice, pee, vomit, the list is almost endless).
A large area rug is much easier to replace - or even to clean, if you get a washable kind.
And a hardwood floor in a kitchen/dining area is the right combo of forgiving surface (if something is dropped) and easy to clean.
Hi Addison,
A few comments:
1. We had kids with a mix of wood floors on most of the main floor, some rooms (and full upstairs) with wall-to-wall, and some rugs. Kids did fine on wood, but your point about rolling around on the floor does go better on carpet. One note: our kids loved a contraption that was a circular table with wheels and a 'seat' in the middle where they could stand and 'walk' while they were learning to walk. It rolled much better on wood. kids love to slide on their socks as well. I liked mixing it up.
2. If you do install rugs, don't 'rip out' the wood, just install wall-to-wall rugs on top. you can rip them out in 15 years (their rough lifetime) and the floors will be beautifully preserved.
3. I appreciate your comments on stone countertops. We are considering installing a slab of granite we got on auction, but considering all the angles.
Chris
Granite is work in terms of maintaining it, but it is lovely. I love the wood floors too, but wall-to-wall rug is an interesting idea. I don't think I've come across it. I would like to just get some nice area rugs for the main part of the floor, although we're having trouble finding any that are not very thin and cheap. I just want an area rug that feels like carpet, but most places don't seem to carry that.
Yes, cheaper than a “real” rug, our friends bought carpet that the carpet store was able to finish the edges, so it was basically a custom sized area rug. Good quality for the price compared to what you would find at the big box store.
Check with local carpet stores. They will sometimes cut remnants to fit.
I have a 4 year old and an 18 month old and can’t imagine preferring carpet to hardwood. Accidents, food spills, paint, crayon, kinetic sand, play dough, dirt, mud, mulch - all the stuff my kids track into the house is so much easier to clean off our wood floors than the sections of the house with carpet. Now porcelain tile on the other hand, despite being easy to clean and very durable, is not kid friendly because everything shatters.
We have wood floors and then we got a huge slobbery puppy that grew into a bigger shedding muddy pawed dog. I feel like I live in a barn.
Wood floors are great for racing cars and wind up toys with kids or puppies. We've been home bound due to flooding and Polly, our pyr/Akbash, played a rousing game of jacks with us on the floor.
I have a toddler (and a Golden Retriever) in a century-old house with (original) wood floors. Honestly, it's not a problem. Everyday, the lot of us are rolling around, running over, jumping on, crashing things upon, spilling onto, and generally abusing the floors. No major injuries. And the wood floors are fine. Why? Because we have (cheap) area rugs over much of them and because wood is easy to buff out and fix, if needed. Wood also looks fine when it's a little worn, as you mentioned.
By contrast, let me tell you a story about my own childhood with optic-white wall-to-wall carpet: Extremely NOT FINE. My poor mother was rug-shampooing, spraying (extremely toxic) carpet cleaners, and vacuuming those damned things constantly. Perhaps a more moderate tone would have been easier to clean, but this was the era of Kool-Aid, and Kool-Aid takes no mercy on any fabric. Oh, and, also, the rugs weren't even that cushion-y, and we boys still managed to hurt ourselves frequently on them, including some pretty gnarly rug-burns!
I think your general point stands: That the prerogative to have minimalist, modern interiors that are SPOTLESS creates a very uptight and inhumane living environment for people, generally, and especially families with children (or pets). And, it's even worse for most people who don't have your more quality, expensive wooden floors and quartz countertops. At least they're durable! Instead, the mass-market versions of contemporary interiors are both lacking in durability, difficult/impossible to repair, and unforgiving when they (inevitably) are scratched, smudged, dented, waterlogged, stained, and just worn.
We were about to have our 3rd child in this crazy market this year, so we went ahead and bought an old 1940’s home we could afford. It does have wood floors all throughout. The first thing we did was carpet the stairs to the second level (I mean, wow, what a hazard! For anyone, let alone children!) We have put down area rugs to have at least one soft landing/playing place in the toddlers’ bedroom & living room. But yes, having 3 boys in 3 years -- two of which love to run around in footie pajamas -- we’ve realized how amazing carpet is!! I will say, wood is annoying sometimes and yes slippery, BUT it actually has more give than other non-carpet floors. My in-laws have a nice home with CERAMIC TILE in the living spaces and I cannot relax there with babies or toddlers. :’)
We have tile in the little corridor bit leading to the kitchen from the garage, and that stuff is unforgiving. Freezing cold to stand on (it doesn't help it's right on the slab, no basement in that portion of the floorplan), very hard. Having ceramic tile even in the kitchen is too much but I've never even seen it in living room-type areas before!
My brother and sister in law have tile throughout the lower level of their home in the Houston area. My husband is from North Africa and every house I’ve ever been in was all tile (probably clay, not ceramic). Both are definitely climate related-tile stays cooler and is less responsive to humidity.
When I was a teen, my parents moved me to an upstairs bedroom in our house with black tile floors and wood panel walls. (Probably hadn’t been redecorated since the 1950s/1960s.)
I suppose it could have been charming, but those floors were FREEZING in the winter. Who wants to get out of bed in that situation?
I'm sure region has something to do with it. My in-laws live in a very warm climate (along the Gulf Coast in Texas).
My parents' house has a steep staircase with shallow (carpeted) stairs leading straight down to a CERAMIC TILE foyer. It is a death trap that haunts my thoughts every time I visit. Could you design an easier way for the elderly or children to die? I mean, hell, I've tripped up on those stairs enough to give myself pause...
I’m quite happy with our wooden floors. They have plenty of give and the noise helps us track our kids. What really seems painful and hard is laminate, faux wood flooring. I think carpet is great for a basement but otherwise would depend on rugs and foam mats for some extra warmth.
What I really object to these days is the style: all white, grey and industrial stainless steel. It seems very cold and inhuman and likely will be out of style in 10 years. Like you said , no room for children or clutter.
We had no choice but to go with warm colours in our house (light greens, yellows and beige) due to the older layout and fixtures, but we like it better anyway.
Our baby is now 9 months old and our apartment's hardwood floors are a source of stress. He is able to sit up but he sometimes topples over still, and if he happens to fall away from the blankets we put down or the rug that is on top, he hits his head and hurts himself. He is less able to freely explore his environment as a result. I used to love the aesthetics and cleanability of hardwood and now I'm starting to see the advantage of carpet.
1940's hardwood floors were nicely protected by wall to wall carpet. We refinished and did well with area rugs that are great for decorating and warmth. Three kids never missed a beat. Wood stairways need carpet for old dogs!!
Hi! Expecting mother here whose awareness of the danger/safety dichotomy of the surfaces in her century-old rental home has suddenly become very acute. Thank you for this piece, it’s quite timely.
My partner and I live downstairs in our home in a mostly-finished basement - carpet on top of raw concrete surrounded by the actual concrete walls of the foundation, which I recently painted. It looks much cuter than it sounds. Basement is a grand smallish space for little crawling people, aside from the very accessible wood stove in one corner...for which I haven’t yet come up with a solution, but friends have assured me that babies and wood stoves have coexisted for centuries so it can’t be that hard to manage? lol.
Linoleum in the shared kitchen, which I think is an underrated and under appreciated surface - ours is recent enough that I don’t worry about asbestos should scratches or lifting occur. We do however have ceramic tile countertops which is...grosser than it sounds. The hardness of stone which presents all the issues you’ve mentioned plus the nastiness of the difficult to clean, easy to neglect grout between the tiles. If it were our place we’d be replacing it with butcher block.
The rest of the main & upper levels are thin-plank hardwood, though the flooring in places is so worn and saggy I feel it’s a much softer and forgiving floor than traditional hardwood. Over top of nearly all the hardwood are these gorgeous area and runner rugs - an ex-girlfriend of our friend Lucas (who owns the house) had a grandfather who was an actual rug merchant? So our house has these amazing rugs she left behind when they split. I’m a fan of the rugs on hardwood because you get the soft play surface for little people and the ease of cleaning hardwood, with the option to swap out your rugs if they get ruined etc.
Those are my two cents! Your very thoughtful writing about home stuff and hypothetical kids is appreciated.
I find your comparison between quartz and granite interesting as I have the opposite position. As a person who frequently hosts guests, giving my kitchen heavy usage in bursts, having granite countertops saves me from worrying about placing hot pans, pots, bakeware on the counter. Thermal durability is a huge factor for me (that the countertops are black granite ameliorates my concerns over staining). The light color quartz in my hall bathroom has a multitude of small discolorations, principally from hot curling irons & one unfortunate incident with a clothes iron, though it's impervious to makeup stains.
Had both wood floors and stone countertops with kids. Did the floors get scratched? Yes, but I much prefer looking at a scratched floor than a stained carpet! The kids hurting themselves on the wood floors was honestly never an issue. We did use large area rugs in the family room. Trucks and trains go much faster and block towers are more stable (and fun to knock down) on a wood floor! Another major advantage for us with wood over carpet was that one of our children had pretty bad allergies and it’s much easier to keep a hard floor dust free than it is carpet. A tip for the dust you see on the wood floor: use a Swiffer (which also picks up cat hair better than sweeping).
I’ve had granite in two houses and I’ve never done an annual seal. Counters in house one looked as good the day we moved out as the day we moved in. We’ve been in our current house 7+ years and they still look brand new. I wipe them down with soap and water. I have a bottle of stone cleaner I use if I really want them to shine.