Hi ritevibe, It seems that many of your worries are to do with the ongoing maintenance and wear that will inevitably come from renting your property out. Timber would quite obviously look amazing in your space, though the damage and maintenance could be restrictive. Have you investigated timber look 'parquet' tiles? Being porcelain, you are not going to find anything more durable and long lasting. It is definitely worth a look at what's available in this material, I will attach some images for your reference and a link to give you a starting point. (http://www.houzz.com.au/projects/683682/par-ker-timber-parquet-porcelain-tiles) In such an environment, I think cost effectiveness would probably be better understood over the life of the floor, as vinyls and floorboards are going to require significant amounts of maintenance, are going to cop a bit of a beating and are not going to last as long as tile. If you want more info I am happy to help out, Best of luck!

Hi Kezzle This is a bit intricate but it should make sense... The flooring industry has tried to move across from lineal metres (lm) to square metres. Normally carpet is 3.66m wide (12ft). It sounds horrendous to buy a 4m wide (15ft) carpet at $390 lm, but if you express it as $97 sqm it's not so bad. Nevertheless, the flooring industry buys it from the suppliers in lineal metres and calculates the quantities in lm also. The trick is to balance the number of joins vs the wastage when deciding the layout. There is also a little trick in the trade where they crimp the quantity but that is for another day... There are two ways of laying the carpet upstairs. The first way is front to back of the house ie 'down' the room in eg bed 1 as shown below. This way will mean you will have a join in bedroom 3 and two in the passage, 1 being in the line of the wir doorway and the other in the line of the bed 3 cupboard. Here is a rough mud map... I can't quite make out the measurements very well, so I have written down the assumed numbers in lineal (length) metres. You can change these if incorrect. In the games room, you will have 1 join which you can't avoid due to the size of the room. This will require around 22.9 lineal metres of carpet.... and at $97.5sqm it should be costing you about $8930. Alternatively if you were paying $9,600 then the real cost of the carpet is $105 sqm.... just like Dr Retro (and there is the trick) If you turn it around the other way, you will have more joins and could do it for around 21.5-22.5lm depending on how many pieces are used in joins... I would go into the shop and ask them to show you how they are installing it.... then crunch the numbers yourself... There are about 3 or 4 ways this can be done so the above is just one... Cheers

HU - I really think you should start a new thread on this issue as, many people may not see this when it is an old thread. I've had different colours of the exact same carpet in a house, but there were rooms in between so it was never obvious, but two different carpets together is another thing again. How did you feel the green looked with the off white?? If you were happy with the two colours together, then you could put any colour you liked with it, otherwise maybe remove the carpet from the stairs, although that can then make the stairs very noisy. What is the condition of the off white carpet - do you feel it may need replacing soon so you could match whatever you do now, if it is a carpet that does not look like being discontinued in the near future. You may even be able to match the off white that is there. Another hassle with using two different carpets is the weave and texture can make them look more odd together than different colours. It is really hard to advise you on this, you really need to see the two carpets together, at least it is easy to bring home carpet samples to see just what you can live with. Good luck.

Thank you both! Yes, we are using contractors, but will do labour/DIY where we can to save $$ (iie pulling off wallpaper and other prep). My brother is a builder so will be organising the trades as they are mates of his, but I know I will need to get him onto it rather than wait for him to so he can get everyone booked in :D he will also be able to help with some of the prep work. So if we get the keys on the Fri would the below work - Fri-Sun/Mon wallpaper off, carpet off, prep Mon-Thurs floors sanded polished Thurs-Fri bedrooms (where there is carpet not floorboards painted Mon-Wed hallway and living room painted Thur-Fri carpets in bedrooms Fri/Sat move in :D