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My daughter doesn't seem to mind that most of our house is uncarpeted. We mostly have hardwood floors also. We have a carpet in the living room and an IKEA play mat in her room and in our room. I worry about her hitting her head if she falls, but not her knees. She is about to start walking.

Instead of buying floorcovering, have you considered keeping your daughters knees covered in babylegs? They're cute, and cheaper.

We have good quality oriental wool area rugs (NOT the kind they sell at IKEA!), and have had them for many years, with both pets and children. They wear like iron, and the patterns hide possible stains (although I have to say, we don't have any stains). Also, they are easy to clean -- we wash them flat outside on the terrace, with gentle soap if needed, and rinse with lots of water. We let them dry in the sun.

I think a large area rug is probably the most obvious, most comfortable solution. I'd recommend getting one large enough to go slightly underneath your sofa, leaving a foot or two of wood floor exposed around the perimeter of the living room area. A busy, bright-colored rug could make the room appear smaller, but a more neutral one shouldn't. (I have a pro-rug bias. Like Jeff Lebowski, I think a rug really pulls a room together. :)

For what it's worth, I have a large dog who goes for long walks every day, and I haven't found that he makes the rugs significantly messier. If his feet are muddy, we just wipe them with a towel before he comes in the house.

Try FLOR carpet tiles. Just google it. We have those in our family room. They are relatively inexpensive, have rubber backing so they won't slip and you can swap them out if she spills or throws up on them. (they are also easy to clean.) For her room, try a Skip Hop Playspot. Same concept, but in rubber. Cheap, easy to clean, portable. (We take our on vacation.)

I, too, have hardwoods, a dog, and an 8-month-old crawler, and I've found that Babylegs are the easiest solution to the problem of bruised baby knees. On the otherhand, even with bare knees my son skooches all over the hardwoods with abandon. It doesn't seem to phase him, although I would like to spare him the strawberry-colored patches of burst bloodv essels that I sported as a child.

We have hardwood floors as well, and when my daughter tarting rolling over I bought a foam puzzle mat from one step ahead.

http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=6683&cmSource=Search

We added 2 sets of numbers and shapes, and have a decent size covering. It is soft, very easy to clean and doubles as a toy. It made our living room very colorful as well:)

you don't need any floor coverings. my daughter happily scoots around our rug free condo. no problem! we do have a pair of babylegs (LOVE them) but we didn't start using them until she became an adept crawler with more balance as they can be pretty slippery. and our intent for using them isn't really about padding...

remember babys "knees" aren't fully formed until around age 3. so while it might hurt adults to crawl around on the floor it does not feel the same for babies.

My son didn't really mind our hardwood floors when he was learning to crawl. Babies have crawled on hardwood or dirt floors for centuries and have managed to survive. I do remember worrying about this issue though before he learned to crawl and was planning on buying baby knee protectors I saw at Babies-R-Us. But he started crawling before I could buy them.

We live in an older home with a mix of wood and tile flooring, and found ourselves in your exact predicament when our daughter began to crawl. We tried a couple of different solutions including area rugs, foam puzzle mat, and babylegs. None of which really worked the way we intended. The dog hair and the dust always seemed to negate the viability of each. Of course, the real challenge with floor coverings of any sort is trying to keep your child sequestered on the floor covering; once our daughter was mobile, she didn’t want to stay in one place for very long. We finally settled on adjusting our expectations. It wasn’t our daughter who was having trouble crawling on the hard floors- it was us. She is now 12 months old and beginning to walk. While the months between crawling and walking may seem like a long time, I don’t think a huge investment was warranted for this stage of development.

Try 150,000 years.

But there's need and want, and there's nothing wrong with a mom wanting to make the floor more comfy for roly-poly time.

I have FLOR on my hardwood floors downstairs to protect them. The floors are new. If I were you, I'd just invest in a quality area rug because those last years and years and become part of your furnishings. Sure, you have to maintain it.

And in the long term, it isn't just about crawling. Crawling, cruising, walking, toddling, running, jumping, falling, tripping, somersaulting, flipping, dancing, break-dancing...

I second the FLOR suggestion -- I can't praise them enough, clean-up is SO easy, you just lift up the offending square(s), sponge it off, and put it back. They're a little pricey for me, but it pays off in durability.

We love the cow print:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/rugs-carpets/stampede-faux-cowhide-flor-from-cb2-030386

when our daughter was in the crawling stage, and the falling down all the time stage, we picked up a couple of cheap yoga mats from Target.

they're great! soft, but easy to roll up and stow away when you don't want them out. easy to wipe off, or even hose down in the shower or bathtub if necessary.

not the most attractive, but not the worst, either, and plus, they're cheap and as I said, can be put away easily if guests are coming over and you don't like the look.

thank you all for the helpful suggestions and feedback.

I'd definitely leave the floors bare if my daughter didn't slip so much (even in babylegs). She's a big girl and is belly-flopping a bunch. Also, as some of you noted- the walking stage is going to come with some falls and it might be good to have a little cushioning.

I'm going to try out the FLOR idea and see how that goes. Also interesting; one step ahead makes their foam puzzle pieces in natural wood:
http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=536202&cmSource=CrossSell&relatedProductId=6683&PIPELINE_SESSION_ID=ee0d1e117f000001779233157d5fe729

Thanks again-- I appreciate everyone's comments.

for all of the people recommending baby legs, I have a question--how much give do they have?

my baby has really chubby legs, she is a big girl (19 pounds at 4 months) and I worry that the baby legs won't fit. a lot of 6-12 month diaper covers are already getting too tight.

Wow. I wish I had the budget that made FLOR tiles "relatively inexpensive". For something around the size of an 8x10 rug will set you back about $600-700. I guess it depends on if you would like a temporary solution or something that will last long into her walking days. For temporary, I would say the obvious area rug, something from Ikea or a even a flea market or second-hand shop. That way if it doesn't last long, you haven't spent a fortune. As for Baby Legs, my 19 pounder is pretty slim, but her legs are chunky and they fit her well. They aren't too tight around the elastic and the rest of the leg warmer is slightly loose. They are also super easy to make out of knee-high socks even if your sewing skills are amateur.

We have 2 young boys and we got a CARPET REMNANT for under our dining room table. It's huge too (at least 8'x10') and was only $275.00 out the door with binding around the edges and the rug pad!! It looks like a high quality rug and we can toss it when the boys get bigger (it's also very easy to spot clean since it's an acrylic cotton blend and not wool.)

FLOR Carpet Tiles were my 2nd suggestion, since you can pick them up and wash in the sink. DO NOT worry about "comfort" on their knees. Babies and even school aged kids are completely oblivious to hard floors--your little one will play on their hands and knees on the floor until they are a tween...at least!

hello!
our last place had concrete floors, so i had the same worry (as well as the worry that my daughter would fall off of something - yipes!).
i bought the skiphop playmat - which i would NOT recommend - too fussy and grit constantly got in the grooves. i originally bought it because i found out that they were the safest (off-gassing-wise) of these products.
i was so unhappy with the skiphop playmat, that i ended up buying some really cheap (like $30 for a square about 8x10) foam playmats from toys r us and then putting them under our large persian rug - which is wool and patterned so highly forgiving.
this has been THE BEST! my daughter is now 17 months, and she's doing somersaults on this same rug! (it's also great for yoga)
;)
best of luck!