Should be OK. The sand, dirt, mud, leaves and dripping clothing should be taken care of in another area of the home. All of the things associated with beaches will make it to the carpet...but not as much as if it were the ground floor.

Be prepaired for sandy, dusty carpets that need more then the normal amount of vacuuming.

Thanks for your comment. I was thinking maybe engineered HW in the hall upstairs and carpet in the bedrooms. My thought was that most of the dirt, sand etc... would be gone by the time people (or the dog) head upstairs. Any suggestions on a type of carpet that wouldn't absorb the dirt so much?

The vacation cabin I manage has wood on the main floor and on the stairs and we used carpet squares on the upstairs. Have only had one accident and we simply replaced the square that was stained. The options are endless. Ours were all one color and pattern, but today there are many variations on the plain carpet tile.

Of the various types of wall-to-wall carpet purchased, the most common is nylon ... most likely because it’s the strongest and never becomes that dreaded “threadbare” carpet. However, it does start to look rather unattractive if it’s not properly maintained (never vacuumed or washed) or if substandard padding was installed. Often, higher quality nylons are “branded,” meaning they’ll say the brand name instead of just “100% nylon.”

My carpet guy advises against steam cleaning and suggests a zero residue or chemdry type method instead.

EmpireToday has a good reputation for being a "one stop shop" for ease of selection and installation. My Mom loved them and believe me, she is hard to please.

Thank you for your comment decoenthusiaste. Did you ever have issues with any of the tiles lifting or curling? This sounds like an interesting option.

We found that Berber and loop carpeting worked very well in our beach condos for maintenance as well as wear and tear.

No problems with lifting or curling or shifting. Really love them and we installed 15 years ago. I'm sure the ones they're making today are even nicer and there are so many more options for styling now.

My preference in your situation would be wood floors (of some kind) upstairs with large area rugs (possibly even wall to wall carpeting with edging) covering most of them. That way you could take out the area rug/carpeting for cleaning or replace it easily when needed, while still having beautiful floors beneath if you ever want to use them with slightly smaller, more decorative area rugs. But I realize this may not be financially feasible.

I had a hand crafted log cabin lake house where the floors were part of the construction and came with the kit. I still put wall to wall in the bedrooms, even though I already had wood floors. Wall to wall in bedrooms seems like a cleaner visual to me, especially if there is a lot of other stuff going on (like in a log home). I went with a dark red wool berber that had some color variation. I would definitely stick with some type of wood on stairs and in halls. But I think carpet in bedrooms (especially second floor) is fine.

I suggest using the engineered woods, and rugs, even indoor/outdoor rugs. The I/O rugs are beautiful, soft underfoot, and can be taken outside and hosed down to clean.