Yea! Good job, sticking with your gut. I really dislike carpet as it literally makes all of us ill due to allergies. More and more folks are having allergies to dust mites, so I think you’ve made a wise choice.
Glad you went with the laminate.
ok: we have both carpet and wood in our house.
I can not imagine a family room without carpet! i dont understand why everyone is so pro-laminate! we have 4 kids. they have slumber parties on the carpeted floor, wrestle, do gymnastics and tumble, play games, build forts, play Lava monster, sit on the floor for large pasta dinners . . . . NEVER do they do that on our wood floors!
i know your market is very different than ours – and this house wont be marketed to families like ours; – but i would have voted for carpet with a super cushy pad. It’s so cozy and comfortable. just getting in another side. 
That’s what area rugs are for!
Pasta with red sauce parties on the carpet?
I agree with @Madison85. The buyer can put area rugs to define different areas of that very large room, and then little Johnny and Janie can do cartwheels to their hearts’ content.
Part of my decision making process was that i didnt feel that a young family was going to purchase the house. No yard, only one car garage.
I feel its empty nesters or older kids or young with no kids. They don’t use family room in same way. Very difficult decision
Well, we’ve never actually had a “family room” at all.
My family room does not have carpet…its hardwood with an area rug. No echoes.
Glad you chose the laminate…and matching the upstairs is excellent.
Can’t wait to see the finished pictures. Someone like me would,have fun picking out a great area rug for that dozens stairs space!
One day, before I die, I hope to own a really big, really beautiful Oriental carpet. Like this:
Or this one:
http://nazmiyalantiquerugs.com/antique/india/indian/antique-mehajeran-persian-rug-43574/
But I despair this may never happen. 
well, at least when you die you will die knowing you have very good taste!
You can probably get a smaller one…
PROGRESS UPDATE
For some reason I cannot load any pictures to Flickr right now, I will try again later today
Exterior paint complete, including all trim. They are finishing out painting the block walls with the trim color this afternoon. I still have to decide whether I want the deck in the front alcove to be the lighter trim or darker to match the walls. He’s going to paint two swatches so I can check it from the street. In the photos, the trim just looks white, but if you look closer you can see it around the front door and there is a significant color difference. Of course you cannot see any of this until I can get the dang photos loaded
Entire downstairs is primed and all of the renovated closet areas upstairs have been primed. I now have to pick wall colors for downstairs
The downstairs bathroom has been painted with neutral semi gloss and it is ready to get finished up. We have installed the toilet down there urgently because on Monday afternoon we will not be able to walk upstairs for a whole week. The only thing I seem to manage really well is… let’s plan very carefully to make sure that we always have a toilet available. But of course I forgot that the doors aren’t installed down there yet!! My Carpenter quickly installed all the doors yesterday
Floors upstairs are getting sanded. They need to install the remaining white oak into the closet floors upstairs because they couldn’t do it earlier when we were reconfiguring everything for the staircase.
New garage door got installed! I like it very much, although the frosted glass one would have had much more punch and detail. Door still needs some adjustment because, of course, the track mechanisms came a little different than the prior track. At least the garage door opener still works great
Early next week I am going to put up some samples and decide between a decorative railing on porch versus horizontal cedar installed in the alcove. Some local agents came over on Thursday and they said that those cedar horizontal planks start looking bad after only 6 months. I’m not sure about that, I see it around on several contemporary houses and still looks good.
I had just a small thought that maybe the stager was quick to say ‘carpet’ because they didn’t have enough large size area rugs in their inventory to do something with wood floors. Large area rugs are expensive for them. Just something in the back of my mind.
I forgot to mention… flooring installer went to wholesale place to order up our laminate and, of course, the specific style and color I want is on back order. We will not be able to get material until October 5th. One week delay in getting floors installed. Dang! There are several things we cannot do until after floors get installed, mostly the baseboards which take awhile to get installed correctly and painted in. I am very picky that baseboards get caulked in and then we paint a coat of paint over all the caulk so that it doesn’t absorb dust and turn yucky.
Costco has some inexpensive large area rugs (I’ve seen others buy–we avoid carpet in this house). Just a thought. I think your interior designer is lazy if she really said carpet because she didn’t have any large area rugs–shame on her! I think the better flooring is worth waiting for.
I’m just speculating on the reason that a designer/stager might insist that carpet is a better choice for a room.
Photos are loaded. Forgot to mention, all ceilings downstairs painted out already. Finally moving fast… but it will be agonizing waiting for the polyurethane to dry on the floors and not being able to get any work done up there. We are going to concentrate on finishing some items downstairs and working on our front yard stuff
Oh, cb, this is looking awesome!! I really like the garage door. It’s not a showy as the modern frosted glass one, but IMO that’s better. I don’t like houses where the garage door visually takes precedence over the rest of the house.
I can’t wait to see the professional photos. This is going to look even better than the Guizot house – which was fabulous.
Looking great! Thanks for the updates and photos.
I too prefer the understated elegance of the new garage door. I was never a fan of frosted glass due to security issues. I like the new replacement much better. The place does look amazing and is nearly done!!!
Looking forward to seeing the rest of the curb appeal redo. Love the garage door…and the stair. And the trim. The greenery will be the frosting on the cake.
Looking forward to seeing the parking pato too!!