Choosing a home carpet

Carpets should be an occasional buy, but making the wrong choice can be costly if you have to replace them too soon.
Think about whether the carpet will fit your room – including alcoves

Experience of buying carpets, include problems of those that flattened or discoloured quickly due to bad quality. Many have had carpets poorly fitted, leaving noticeable joins, bumps and gaps, and causing doors to catch.

Wear and tear

There’s a lot to think about before you choose a home carpet. Bear in mind how much wear it will get and how long it should last – a few months to sell your house, or years of teenagers tramping up and down the hallway?

Look ahead

Before paying out for the latest fashionable colour or pattern, think about future decorating plans. Always take a sample home to see how the carpet might look with your décor, both in the day and at night with your lighting. You’ll also need to think about whether the width and pattern of the home carpet will fit your room, including alcoves, and check that it won't result in oddly placed joins.

Decide on a budget

Deciding how much to spend is difficult, but you should also be paying for fitting and underlay.


Selecting your style

It's easy to build a decorating scheme around a neutral home carpet
The style of a home carpet can change a room’s whole appearance, so choose the colour and design carefully. Your decision may be based on personal taste, but here are some important issues to consider.

Sticking to one style in different rooms creates a flow between them. And remember that a carpet will look different during the day and at night, so take a sample home to check before buying.

Plain versus patterned

Plain carpets can be more flexible than patterned as they will coordinate with a wider range of furniture and wall coverings – but they can make large rooms look empty and uninteresting. It’s often best to stick to plain carpets if your furniture is bold and colourful, however. Using texture such as a shag pile can add interest to a plain home carpet.
Patterned carpet is making a comeback. There’s a wide range of patterns to choose from, including classic florals, contemporary motifs or tartan. A patterned home carpet can act as the focal point of a room if you have pale, plain furniture and walls. Patterned carpets can also hide signs of soiling and wear.

Avoid large patterns in small rooms as they make the room feel cluttered.

Living Room Carpets

With all those family occasions, dinners in front of the TV and relaxing afternoons with the Sunday papers, the living room carpet is prey to high levels of footfall and accidental spillages and stains. No other area of the home will be subject to continual risk from dropped food, excited children, dog, cats and that evening glass of wine more than this room and as such it demands a living room carpet that performs. Not only this, it is also the favourite room for making an impression, so the living room carpet needs to look great too.

So you’ve guessed it, it's vital to ensure a hard-wearing carpet for this area. Look for those that offer a higher pile density, using 40oz per square yard as a minimum guide, and you may want to consider a carpet with a stain-resistant treatment, particularly if you have children or pets. However, wool and man made carpets have a natural resistance to staining, so as long as you get on the clean-up case as soon as possible. Of course if the Merlot were to find its way onto the carpet start out by blotting the spill with paper towel to remove as much of the wine as possible first.

For lighter carpets, after blotting the red wine stain, try diluting one tablespoon of ammonia with one cup of warm water – apply to the red wine stain and leave for 10 minutes. Blot with a clean cloth or some paper towel – this should remove the stain.


If you don’t have ammonia in the house, then sprinkle some table salt onto the stain – this takes longer, and you’ll have to leave the salt on the stain overnight to absorb the liquid – vacuuming the stain after this should then remove the stain.

Vacuum your living room carpets regularly, get it professionally cleaned on a regular basis and you should be okay.   

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