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When my husband and I bought our tiny townhouse 3 years ago, we got a flooring allowance from the sellers, because the carpet looked like a dozen people from a dozen keg parties threw up on it.

The allowance was just enough to buy the cheapest wall-to-wall carpet on the market. I argued, stomped my feet, begged and offered favors that, you know, wives offer their husbands to control them, that we supplement the flooring allowance and get hardwood floors. I imagined sexy, dark hardwood or bamboo floors with beautiful area rugs I could change, say after a vomiting session from our next kegger. I kid. Alas, we’re too old for keggers.

As you may have guessed from my tone, I lost that battle.

The new bargain basement wall-to-wall was gorgeous … for about a month. It wore out much faster in our tiny townhouse than it would have in a huge townhouse and here’s why. Furniture is crammed together in a tiny townhouse which creates tiny paths through which we walk. Hmmmm, yes, traffic patterns reveal themselves mighty fast in tiny townhouses with cheapo broadloom on the floor.

So, three years later, the carpet already needs replaced. While I enjoy telling my husband “I told you so,” I won’t enjoy shelling out MORE bucks when we could have shelled out LESS bucks in the first place for hardwood floors.

Cheap area rugs – when they wear out or get dirty – are cheap to replace. Changing out an area rug is certainly much, MUCH cheaper than changing an entire floor of wall-to-wall just to get rid of traffic patterns worn into 30% of it.

Not to mention that cheap area rugs are instantaneous renewal for us Serial Decorator types.

I have a feeling though, that my battle for hardwood with rugs over the top isn’t over. Hubby has a hard time with the concept of spending more now to save money in the long run. Men!