Carpet in the Bathroom: What You Should Know

Home remodeling requires making some significant design decisions. Not only does it mean choosing new fixtures for your bathroom, but also paint, cabinets and door hardware, and decorative elements to show off your style. If it’s a large enough remodel, you’ll even find yourself considering the flooring.

Tile, wood floor, laminate, or carpet can be used throughout the whole house. Often, homeowners opt for tiling in bathrooms, leaving carpeting for bedrooms and living areas. However, carpet can work well in bathrooms, too. Here are some of the pros and cons of installing carpet in the bathroom.

Pro: Carpet Is Comfortable

Chances are that you don’t get ready in the morning with your shoes on. Instead, you probably brush your teeth, wash your face, or put on makeup while your bare feet are standing on the floor in front of the bathroom vanity. On some chilly mornings, bare toes and cold tile do not mesh. Floor heating systems can cost thousands of dollars, putting them out of reach for many bathroom renovators.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Since there is a layer of insulation padding between the carpet and the base floor, carpet retains heat. It offers a warm, comfortable foundation for you to stand on. As such, when you crawl out of bed on a cold day, you may appreciate standing on warm, padded carpet instead of cold tile.

Con: Carpet Is Absorbent

While carpet is warm and inviting, it also soaks up water. As you probably know, manufacturers make carpet by weaving absorbent textiles onto a mesh backing. Installers then place carpeting on top of thick padding before attaching everything to tack strips along your walls. While they are soft, the carpet and the padding tend to attract and hold water. In fact, without a powerful vacuum and a well-ventilated room, carpet and padding can remain wet for days following a spill.

Along with your kitchen, the bathroom is one of the most common places of minor, in-home flooding. Should you have a water emergency, you may need to remove and replace carpeting in the bathroom. Likewise, since you shower or bathe in the bathroom, you constantly expose carpet there to high humidity and moisture. Accordingly, if you have carpet in your bathroom, you likely need to take extra care to keep it dry, such as installing a heating vent, and using shower mats.

Pro: Carpet Is Beautiful

If you have high-style dreams for your redone bathroom, you may find tile to be inadequate. While you can purchase tile in several materials, finishes, and colors, it all essentially looks the same: hard surfaces with grout lines. That isn’t the case with carpeting. Since carpet comes in an endless variety of styles, designs, patterns, colors, and textures, you can get a unique look by installing carpet in your bathrooms.

Con: Carpet Can Look Dingy

There is no question that carpet is easy to clean. With just a quick pass of a vacuum cleaner, you remove the dust, dirt, and other debris that makes your carpeting look bad. When carpet ages, though, it can begin to look dingy, as dirt settles deep inside the fibers. Likewise, since carpet sits on padding, dirt and odors can migrate below the surface of your carpeting, contributing to an unclean look and smell.

Pro: Carpet Is Cleanable

Even though carpet may look dingy over time, it isn’t difficult to clean. Routine vacuuming removes much of the dust and dirt that tends to ruin the look of carpet. Then, occasional shampooing helps eliminate deep-set dirt and foul odors for the carpeting on your bathroom floors. If you are concerned about keeping your bathroom carpet clean, schedule regular cleanings to keep carpeting looking fresh and fluffy for years.

Con: Carpet Retains Odors

Each year, consumers spend millions of dollars on products to control bathroom odors. Since soft items, such as carpeting, tend to capture and hold odors, many homeowners think that installing a rug in the bathroom will help contribute to bad smells. While that may be true with ordinary carpeting, bathroom carpets are different.

Made with modern technology, bathroom-specific rugs repel odors. If you are looking for a carpet for your bathroom, skip the bedroom and living room varieties. By choosing carpeting designed specifically for bathrooms, you can get a beautiful, smell-free floor covering.

Pro: Carpet Is Affordable

Many homeowners are taking advantage of the hot housing market to invest some home equity in renovations. When they do, the savvy ones choose to focus on kitchens and bathrooms, where they are likely to see the best return on their investments. For budget-conscious remodelers, tile and other bathroom floor covering can cause serious sticker shock. Spending 20 dollars on a square foot of marble tile can make anyone queasy.

For a more affordable option, homeowners often give carpeting a second look. While you can purchase expensive carpet, most is cheaper than tile. Even better, carpet installation costs are usually considerably less than hiring a tile installer. Accordingly, if you want to save money while pulling off a beautiful bathroom renovation, carpeting may be the way to go.

Con: Carpet Can Promote Mold Growth

Informed homeowners must stay aware and carefully guard against dangerous black mold. This toxic fungus can cause health problems ranging from insomnia to asthma. The best way to keep mold out of your home is to keep it dry. Since bathrooms are naturally moist places, controlling mold and mildew growth in the bathroom can be a challenge. Because carpet retains moisture, it can promote mold growth if you aren’t careful.

Some carpet, however, is better than others. Carpeting designed for bathroom applications relies on modern technology to stay dry. For healthy bathroom flooring, skip the regular carpet and opt for a bathroom-specific alternative.

Pro: Carpet Is Replaceable

One of the most stressful things about a home renovation is choosing timeless elements. Often, homeowners install a fixture or finish, only to have it fall out of style in a few years. While nothing guarantees your carpet will stand the test of time, you can change carpet easier than you can replace tile or other flooring. For instance, you can purchase bathroom carpet that is cut-to-fit for smaller rooms, and it can act as wall-to-wall carpeting while being as easily washed as a bathroom rug. However you plan to install the carpet, it is wise to change it out every five to eight years because of the traffic and moisture it will be exposed to.

When remodeling your bathroom, you are in for a real adventure, but a bathroom carpet doesn’t have to take you for a ride. While carpet has some drawbacks, the many advantages encourage homeowners to install it in their new bathrooms with great results. Not only do you get to design the space of your dreams, you get to boost the comfort and usability of your bathroom.