What's your ideal floor?

[Maza]

In our new house we currently have big floor tiles in the hall and kitchen diner. They look nice enough (pale grey, so show up every speck of dust).

They are quite slippery and from a childminding perspective wouldn't be great for toddlers as they are rock solid - I'm thinking lots of head bumps when they fall. We will eventually replace them (they are also really cold). What is your ideal flooring?

[loocyloo]

I would say I prefer real wood floors ... polished, as they 'give' when things are dropped on them or children fall over! But water etc can soak in.
I have laminate in playroom, with a big rug and it's good for cars etc. Easy to mop up accidents and mess, but I do worry about liquids making the joints swell.
My kitchen has stone tiles ... haven't had any/many bumps on it, and it's great for messy play as easy to mop up and I don't worry about damaging the floor... that said, we do have a couple of chips in the floor where things have been dropped! And it isn't very forgiving of glass and china!

At my old house I had ( road map! ) lino in the playroom and that was great ... soft to play on, waterproof, chip proof .... but I don't know that I'd want it all through the house!

I ask that all children have/wear slippers or indoor shoes, or at the very least, those socks with grippy bits on the sole.

[FussyElmo]

Carpet however in reality we have laminate down in the hall living room dining room. Tiles in the kitchen.

When we had the hall done we had a barrier mat by the front door. Nightmare to hoover but does catch a lot of the mud etc.

I would love carpet throughout but with my sporty children the dogs the mindees its a distant dream

[Maza]

I know Fussy - I would also love carpet in my hallway, but it would just be impractical.

Loocyloo, that's great that you ask the children to wear slippers/grip socks. I was wondering how to get over the problem of the coldness and slipperiness. I'll have to ask them to provide those here too.

[Bluebell]

I agree lino would be my ideal. i currently have laminate and i think its over concrete so not warm and defintely not soft if children fall over. I have a couple of large rugs so they can sit and play comfortably on the floor. I try and have a freeflow and apert from the very coldest weather the door is open so my flooras do tend to get dirty quicker but much easier to sweep and mop the laminate floors near the door than it would be if it was all carpeted!

[Pixie dust]

I have laminate in my playroom but it desperately needs replacing, it was already in the house when we moved in 12 years ago but I am not sure what I want to put down instead. The kitchen and bathroom has tiles and the rest of the house has carpet. I would love to pull up the lounge carpet and replace with wood flooring but we currently don't have the budget to do this.

[Dragonfly]

I provide slippers for all my mindees as I have oak floors throughout downstairs and ceramic tiles in the kitchen diner they are so cold.i put play mats down during childminding days.i wouldn’t want carpets.

[FloraDora]

I had carpet everywhere (pale ones too) except by the front door where we had a huge fitted doormat and the kitchen and bathroom which was vinyl.
All children took shoes off on the big doormat and just had socks on indoors....but I provided grip socks for water play / painting/ cooking activities in the kitchen. The only issue was playdoh in the dining room / craft area ...but the children always said when they dropped any, which got picked up immediately and I put covers under high chairs which worked well...and parents liked the home from home experience ...the children were aware of spillage / mop up issues and the carpet was lovely to play on.

[Dragonfly]

We all like different things. It would be boring if we were all the same.