Hello everyone!
The other day I was thinking back to places I’ve rented to live in over the years. I’ve stayed in some wonderful, and some not so wonderful places, but one sticks out the most because it had a main bathroom which was carpeted, including up the sides of the bath! In my personal opinion, carpeting in the bathroom is a no-no.
That got me thinking… what about Airbnb Hosts, and their listings? I can imagine that carpeting a listing must mean a bit of extra work hoovering, it’s more difficult to clean up spills… but then laminate flooring is noisy for downstairs neighbours, and for some people it’s not very cosy.
So, the burning question from me is: Carpet or no carpet - what’s the best for your listing? Are you a fan of cosy, plush carpeting? Or do you prefer some sleek, easy to clean laminate? Maybe you’ve got beautiful old polished floor boards and some lovely rugs to complement your decor? What’s the positives and negatives about the flooring you’ve chosen? Let me know in the replies. Feel free to share photos!
Hope to hear from you soon.
Take care!
Jenny
It’s mixed feelings for me as I see the value of having carpets and the comfort/feels to your feet of plush luxurious carpets, especially in the winter but also I can relate to the cost of maintaining carpets when they're all over your home so for me it's a mixture. I recently had to strip out all carpets from my landing /stairs and the basement due to guests accidentally staining them and general wear and tear over time. I did however leave carpets in the rooms as it's just cosy although my daughter whose quite young wants them out and replaced with an area rug instead.
This new combo has made cleaning so much easier, especially in those high-traffic areas. As you can see in the main house we no longer have the whole stairs area carpeted and in the guest's suite Living area we've taken out carpets however in the bedroom, we've left them on.
@Barbara3006 Our apartment in Nice has beautiful original 1960 parquet flooring but we do have rugs in the main rooms. We suggest guests remove their shoes when in indoors and so most of the time it’s not a problem for our downstairs neighbours. But occasionally it is - we recently had a group of 4 guests who all loved to walk around in high heels!
We have wood look tile planks in both our rentals, one in DC and one in Fort Lauderdale, which is very practical for cleaning and warm "looking", but tends to be hard and can be cold on the feet (good for Florida, but less so in DC). We use area rugs for bedrooms, hallways and living areas to soften up rooms and define spaces. One of my pet peeves with may STRs is that they can be too sparse and I think area rugs inject some color, personality and warmth into a space making it more inviting. We try and stick with easy to clean woven wool or sisal. Flor rug "tiles" are also a good option because you can replace individual tiles rather than a whole rug if needed. Our Florida LR rug is actually indoor/outdoor, which makes it very durable (we hope) and we treat all of our rugs with Scotchguard and leave a good upholstery cleaner (Forex is my fave) for spills and stains, because you know, accidents happen. We also let our guests know in the house manual that we understand that accidents can happen and direct them to use the available cleaning products as soon as possible if there is a stain or spill. 
