Pale beige wall-to-wall carpeting -- need I say more?

It was less expensive than hardwood flooring, especially on the stairs, and it looked so soft and elegant. But one of the cats did not take the move well, and tended to piss on it. And of course we live in a country with real, honest-to-God winter, which comes with muck, so filth got tracked on it. And then, over time, we noticed that dust accumulated in it, much to the detriment of my creaky asthmatic lungs.

So, six years after moving into the house, we had to get the inevitable hardwood floor installed anyway. By then, the task involved unloading the contents from 12 stuffed floor-to-ceiling bookcases, not to speak of all the other furniture in the house. If we'd had it done in the first place, the house would have been built like that.