Our vacation house on the ocean had all old shag carpet dating back to the 1970s. About six years ago we had it all torn out and replaced it with laminate. I wish we could do that with the house we live in that has mostly carpet, but that is too big of a project to even think about right now. We just learned to live with the carpet and all the messes the cats make on it.
Our vacation house was built in 1975 so it has an "Elvis Room" with felt and silk walls and mirrors. None of the potential buyers liked that 70s style which was to our advantage because there was less competition to purchase. Still, it took six months to purchase it because our first deal fell through and another buyer had a deal, but his deal fell through and we were waiting to snap it up. This happened in 2010 when the economy had tanked and there were lots of foreclosures. But we were still lucky to get it for what we paid, which was one third of its present market value.
Sadly, we never used it for a vacation house since we have had too many things going on in our life to even think about vacations. So we rented it month to month and have had the same tenant for the last five years. The previous tenants has wanted to change the Elvis Room but he loves it.
It was a vacation house before we bought it and we might make it a vacation house again someday, since we could get more income and we could use it for ourselves whenever we wanted to, since it is only about a two hour drive. When we had 23 cats we used to go on vacations and we had a pet sitter come in twice a day. We could potentially do that again, and it would be easier now that we only have 10 cats, but right now we cannot go on any vacations because we have too many things going on in our life.