I'm so glad we don't have carpet

I think from now on, my first advice to any new parent will be this:  rip out the carpet now.

When we rented this place, the landlady was very proud of her "hardwood" floors.  She's a tad delusional, it's just laminate (I think, I don't know the difference between vinyl, laminate, and linoleum) flooring with a hardwood pattern, and she probably thinks the bathroom looks like it has marble counters, too.  It doesn't.  It looks like someone smeared poo all over the bathroom - every small child who sees my bathroom for the first time says so.  I haven't been able to decorate the bathroom in the two years we've lived here because I can't figure out what goes with poo.

Anyway.  I have a love/hate relationship with our lack of carpet.  First, I can't stand to be barefoot.  Before we lived here, the first thing I would do upon coming home was kick off my shoes.  Now I usually don't take my shoes off until I go to bed.  And you never realize how sound-dampening carpet is until you don't have any.  I sometimes feel like my head is going to explode from the non-stop racket around here.  I know rugs would help, but then we get into the area of what I love about not having carpet.  Plus, a good room-sized rug is expensive and there's always something else more important to buy, it seems.

So, what do I love about not having carpet?  I love not having to vacuum.  There are a couple of noises that I can't handle - such as hairdryers, the AC in the van being on high, and vacuums.  I honestly never blow dry my hair unless it is sub-freezing outside.  So, not having to deal with the sound of a vacuum cleaner is very lovely to me. 

After you sweep and mop a few times, you realize how nasty floors get and I just have a hard time believing a vacuum can suck all that nastiness up.  I'm not OCD about cleaning (I honestly wish I were) or anything like that, but you see the bottom of a mop bucket enough (or a Swiffer pad or my Shark pad) and you think about things like that.

And, very important with my crew, it's hard to stain laminate flooring.  And have you ever tried to get gum out of carpet?  It's just much easier to maintain.  I know with all the stuff I've mopped up that our carpet would look awful by now. 

Yes, I miss having nice plush carpet between my toes at times.  I don't like stepping onto a cold floor.  But, it will have to wait until the girls are little older.  Just like couches that I don't feel the need to cover up with slipcovers.  And pretty much any other nice object.  Heck, if I had my way, I'd vinyl-coat the whole house, install some floor drains and just hose the place off once a week and be done with it.  Save me a couple of headaches.