House is 21 years old. Downstairs is mostly (chinese green) slate, with carpet in formal lounge and study only. The carpet is original, must have been very good quality because it still looks good (has been well looked after).
There is also a lot of the stained timber look in this house, exposed beams, cathedral ceilings lined with timber, balustrades, front door, furniture etc. A bit dated now perhaps but I like it.
Stairs are carpeted, I think we decided on that initially because of the safety aspect with kids etc. The carpet on the stairs is surprisingly good for its age but it's time to replace it. Have also had some minor water damage from a leaking shower upstairs so the hallway carpet has to be replaced. The thing about carpet is that it's all or nothing. The carpet in the bedrooms is still in very good condition, the spare room in particular almost as good as the day it was laid.
So the upstairs floor coverings need replacing. One option is to just replace the carpet, including the stairs. But I'm thinking of ripping the carpet off the stairs and leaving them as timber. They were meant to be timber stairs when they were built, we just decided to carpet them at the last minute. Then using laminate (probably quickstep laguna) in the upstairs hallway. Also thinking about the laminate in the bedrooms.
There's a few things I'm concerned about. There is extra work (and cost) in doing up the stairs, levelling the upstairs areas ready for laminate, ripping off the skirting boards etc. We would use a good quality underlay (combi-lay I think it's called) but there is the noise factor to consider too. And the "cold" factor with having laminate in the bedrooms, although not much of a problem in Brisbane I guess. Another option is to laminate the hallway and recarpet the bedrooms.
I like the look of timber and our house (downstairs) has a fair bit of stained timber in it. It's why I'm looking at timber stairs and a floating floor upstairs. Would also be nice to have a change. But the main thing I'm concerned about is the hotch-potch of floor coverings we may end up with. Slate and carpet downstairs, timber stairs, laminate, (and perhaps carpet in the bedrooms) upstairs. There can even be a bit of a mismatch between the laminate hallway and the timber stairs, which I guess is why some people try to lay laminate on their stairs too. Can match the stair stain to the laminate but it is still "different"
So how do you think it would look going from slate at the bottom of the stairs, onto stained timber stairs, to timber laminate at the top of the stairs, then onto carpet in the bedrooms? Sounds like a hotch-potch to me and I'm having problems visualising it. Decorating is not one of my strong points. The easiest and probably the cheapest solution would be to replace the existing carpet, kind of a boring solution though. Now that our kids have pretty much grown up we might be moving on in a year or two as well, so resale value might come into play.