I have the modern equivalent of a shag pile rug in our bedroom: constructed by eco friendly, third world home business using T-shirt manufacturing offcuts. This rug has the same depth of a 60's shag pile but different texture. Vacuuming is easy (for my husband) and much nicer to pop the feet on when getting out of bed in the morning than the polished floorboards. Other than this and a couple of persian rugs, carpets are totally OUT in our home.

Okay, so as expected the matt suede surface is more expensive, not sure how much yet but when the builder says price on application, I can imagine it will be a fair bit more. Anyway, we'll see but something to take into consideration I guess... In the meantime, I was going through my idea books and found the photo below, which I kind of forgot about but is one of my absolute favourite kitchens... the point is just like the photo, we too will have a wall cabinet in matt black, the back of the island in matt black and oak floor boards in a natural/textured matt finish... so now I'm thinking maybe too many matt surfaces, interestingly they have gone with a polished stone top which I think is reflecting the light nicely... Our floors...

Oh! Fun! Squeaky floorboards have a few easy fixes. Well, 'easy' is a bit subjective. You have to get under the floorboards, in most cases, which is not always simple. Then, try using wooden wedges and hammering them into gaps. Nail a piece of 2x4 along a joist to help with spongy boards that have too much movement. You might even add a nail from the top into the joist to fix the worst ones that are not fixed by the first two methods. This video might also help...

As someone who has lived in floorboard homes for over 15yrs I can promise you, that you will regret putting hard flooring into a bedroom. Carpets in a bedroom are a very good idea for many reasons.... It deadens sound in a room that needs to be quiet. You have no idea how much sound proofing carpet does until you remove it. You are very likely to walk around a bedroom in bare feet even if you wear slippers in the rest of the house. Your feet are an incredibly sensitive sensory organ. You will feel every tiny bit of grit on the floor with hard flooring, it will stick to your feet and then be transplanted into your bed. Or you will drive yourself crazy wanting to wash your feet again before getting into bed. On a cool morning you will miss the soft warm feel of carpet on your feet. Carpet adds a touch of luxury to a room and makes it look inviting and cosy. Floorboards look great in a high traffic areas, but sparse and uninviting in a bedroom. Vacuum cleaners are more effective on carpet than hard flooring, which really needs to be mopped in order to feel clean. Do you want to mop your bedrooms on a regular basis?