Carpet vs Hardwood in Bedrooms: 12 Pros and Cons

Which option is the best one for a bedroom floor: carpet, or hardwood? Some people say that soft and warm carpet should be the only choice for a bedroom, while others claim that nothing is more durable and more beautiful than a hardwood floor.

If you love the look of carpet, you could consider convenient carpet tiles that are durable and easy to install. Others prefer the look of engineered hardwood flooring. However, they might not want to step on a cold floor when you get out of bed. You could make a compromise by covering parts of your hardwood floor with a warm and soft area rug.

Is there really a way to solve the carpet vs hardwood in bedrooms debate once and for all? There are different reasons why carpet or hardwood floors might be ideal in bedrooms.

Pro: Carpet is quiet

For the debate on carpet vs hardwood in bedrooms, the most obvious advantage of carpet is it is quiet. A bedroom floor covered with a thick carpet will be more quiet than a floor covered with hardwood. This can have many advantages: if, for example, your partner needs to use the bathroom a few times during the night, you will not hear them get out of bed and walk in the room.

Pro: Carpet is soft and warm

If you don’t want to step on a cold and hard floor when you get out of your warm bed, you should consider installing carpet in your bedroom. If you want to install new flooring in a young kid’s bedroom, carpet is definitely a great choice as it makes a soft and warm play mat.

Pro: Carpet is safer

Carpet is a safer choice than hardwood for a bedroom, for different reasons. If you have to get out of bed in the middle of the night, you will see that walking on a carpet is not as slippery as walking on a hard floor. Plus, carpet traps allergens in its fibers, which keeps them out of the air we breathe.

However, engineered hardwood flooring can also make sense on a bedroom floor:

Pro: Hardwood is easy to clean

Whether or not you’re worried about allergens, you can count on hardwood for being a lot easier to clean than carpet. Hardwood doesn’t collect dust and other allergens, and you can clean it with a vacuum cleaner or a quick sweep. If you spill something on it, you can simply wipe it off.

Pro: Hardwood makes it easy to rearrange furniture

Do you like rearranging furniture in your bedroom? If so, hardwood will allow you to do it as often as you like. As long as there are some protective pads at the bottom of your furniture, you will be able to easily move it around the room.

Pro: Hardwood can last a lifetime

Hardwood doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. It might be a bigger investment than installing carpet, but carpet needs to be replaced often. Hardwood, on the other hand, can stay beautiful for decades if you take good care of it.

Carpet is great, but it’s not a perfect flooring option:

Con: Carpet is more difficult to clean

Carpet makes itself useful by trapping allergens instead of letting them enter your lungs. However, removing these allergens from your carpet can be difficult. Even if you use a vacuum cleaner at least once a week, your bedroom carpet might never be completely clean.

Con: Carpet can stain easily

Some types of carpet are stain resistant, but not all of them. For this reason, carpet might not be the best option for the bedroom of a child who likes to paint, to draw with markers, or to eat sticky and colourful sweets.

Con: Carpet has a shorter lifespan

Carpet has a short lifespan compared to hardwood. You might need to replace it in a few years, or to endure worn out carpet for some time if you’re not ready to invest in a new one.

Hardwood flooring comes with some disadvantages as well:

Con: Hardwood is cold and hard

If you like walking barefoot in your bedroom, hardwood might not be the best choice for you. Hardwood floor is cold to the touch, especially during the winter. Its hard surface might also not be the best choice for a child’s bedroom.

Con: Hardwood is more noisy

If your partner is walking in your bedroom during the night, you might hear your hardwood floor creak. If your bedroom is below your kid’s bedroom, and if you installed hardwood floor in it, you will see that it doesn’t muffle sound at all.

Con: Hardwood scratches easily

Finally, hardwood can easily get scratched, which once again doesn’t make it a perfect choice for a kid’s bedroom. A hardwood floor with scratches can still look beautiful, but not everyone agrees on that point.

Ultimately, each option has its pros and cons. The type of flooring you should choose really depend on your needs and on your preferences.