No Carpets!

Aside of location, one of the main selling features for our new house was the fact that there was no carpeting anywhere in the house.  I was advised years ago by my allergist to get rid of all carpeting in the home.  Each house since then we worked towards that goal but with this house it has already been done for us.  Most of the house is wood laminate.  The two bathrooms are ceramic tile; the entrance and part of the lower family room are terrazzo tile; and the kitchen is marble tile.  The utility room has sheet flooring that we will be replacing likely with sheet flooring but possibly ceramic tile.  I have two things to master with all hard flooring:

• cleaning - Each surface has it's own care and maintenance recommendation.  I am adamant about not using toxic cleaners in our home.  It's important to stay on top of keeping these floors clean and dust free so cleaning once a week is not going to work.  Some specialized equipment is necessary but the good news is most of it is rather inexpensive.
• sound deadening - A house with no carpeting is naturally louder than one that has sound deadening carpeting.  All sounds in a house with only hard flooring are amplified.

I have a few methods for dealing with both the cleaning and sound deadening issues.  I will discuss those over the next couple of posts.

Garden Gnome
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