In my house, our stairs are carpeted and the upstairs/downstairs levels are floating floorboards. The stairs worked out too expensive to do so we changed carpet colour to compliment the colour of the timber. It looks fine :) I think they're separate levels and you won't see them together so should look good either way!

There will be a height difference, you will need to use a reducing strip into the study and lounge. Don't forget the timber floors will also reduce the height of the skirts unless you are planning to take them up. Will you be continuing the flooring under the dishwasher & fridge, this will also change their heights. In the long run better to take up the floor, there are companies that will do it in a day, leave the floors prepared and take away the rubbish for around $30 m2.

You can do whatever you like, but you need to decide on the margins of where the colours would change. You could go with the same white but have double or triple strength in some areas and possibly half in others. There are whites that will work with both schemes so I suggest you decide what tint you would like e.g.. grey or yellow or green and get a couple of test pots and paint a flattened cardboard box and move it around the spaces. If you have access to Resene Paints - Thornton Cream in its various strengths may work for the spaces you describe. But have a look at their whites and neutrals fan deck. Watch the white accents - you will need to make sure you have enough of a contrast otherwise it will look like a poor match so the contrast needs to be strong enough against white[ the margins on the paint chart can help with this. Good luck

I have chosen Signature Carpets "Harlow- Creighton" 65 oz carpet with a pile length of 16mm.Half of the carpet was laid before x-mas and not finished. I took a sample of the laid carpet to the showroom to compare with the sample there and the colour was different. I have now taken the showroom sample home to compare what had been laid on the floor and found that the showroom sample had the same length of fibre, but had a mush plusher feel to it and felt very much dense.I am currently walking on the unfinished Creigton carpet and have footmarks everywhere I go, to the point of toe-marks(bare feet) still imprinted on the carpet the next day! I have now compared a sample of Harlow Creighton laid at my property and Luxcloud Florian(very much cheaper) and apart from the pile height there is no difference. Both of them are tracking very badly and look awful, especially compared to the denser showroom sample. I get the impression that there is either a problem with the wrong carpet delivered from the carpet importer or maybe the more expensive carpet ordered by me was substituted with the cheaper Luxcloud Florian. The third scenario is that there is no difference in density between the cheaper and more expensive carpet and only the height is different. However, this still does not explain why the sample from the showroom seems to be much denser and does not track very much. A sales rep from the carpet importer is coming on Monday. Is there anybody who had a similar experience and who could give me some advice? The importers sales rep is coming in a few days and I just want as much info as possible.