Carpet Buying Guide

Buying a new carpet is, of course, a matter of personal taste when it comes to color choices, textures, and patterns. Planning ahead rather than making an impulse decision can help you pick a carpet that will better suit your lifestyle and needs. Therefore, before you begin shopping, consider the following factors that affect a smart purchasing decision.

Lifestyle

Do you have children, pets, frequent visitors, or excessively high traffic areas? If so, one selection criterion should be a durable and resilient carpet that will stand up to your demands. For high traffic areas a textured carpet, either cut pile with highly twisted loops or a multilevel loop, made of nylon will outperform other styles.

Stain resistance should also be a considered factor in your decision for busy rooms, and color choice is important as well. Medium and dark colors, and multicolored carpet will show less soil.

Budget Considerations

The lowest priced carpet isn't always the best deal. Consider the cost of the carpet over the expected life time of the carpet to determine the cost per year. Often, the cost per year will be lower for what is initially a more expensive carpet. The bonus is that the more expensive carpet is often nicer to see and touch as well, plus usually offers more exciting choices of color, pattern, and texture to give you a broader range of options.

Personal Taste

Most people know to consider the color scheme of the room they plan to carpet. What many often fail to realize is the interconnectivity between all rooms of the home. While rooms often have different colored walls, it's the flooring that can either make your home reflect a well thought out and coordinated decorating effort - or a random assortment of broken continuity.

Bring samples of your upholstery, drapes and wall color to the carpet store to evaluate them against the carpeting you're interested in. When you narrow it down to a few favorites, ask to take some carpet samples home to evaluate. Examine the carpet samples in your home under varying light conditions against your wall color, furniture, drapes, and other major color components. What looks good at night may not be as pleasing in the day.

Basic Considerations

A carpet purchase is an important investment. With the time, money, and energy that goes into the selection and installation of a new carpet, it's an investment you'll want to enjoy for years to come, so the importance of making an intelligent carpet choice can't be overstated.

Professional decorators consider a home as a whole rather than a series of disconnected spaces. That doesn't mean you need the same floor covering in each room to connect the spaces, it just means that as one room opens up to the next, there should be coordinated flow that creates a harmonious transition. Ignoring the flow isolates each room and creates a visually cluttered feel.

The color of your new carpet can affect the visual "feel" of the room. For example, small spaces seem bigger by choosing light colored carpet, furniture, and wall color. The eye is fooled into seeing more space than is really there. Conversely, a large space can be made to feel warmer and more homey by using a deep, rich colored carpet.

Color can also help set a subconscious tone for a room. A room that always seem cold or lacks natural light can be made to feel warmer with bright colors in the yellow-red range. Cool greens and blues can help create a calm and serene ambience for bedrooms and reading rooms. Rooms with a lot of activity are brought to life with vibrant, lively colors. Formal rooms are enhanced by old-world colors or soft pastels.

Carpet Construction and Durability

Durability is the result of three carpet manufacturing factors. The type of fiber used, the yarn twist, and the pile density all determine how well a carpet will wear.

Fiber

  • Nylon fiber is the strongest, most durable fiber used in today's carpets. It provides outstanding durability, shape retention, and appearance characteristics. Use nylon for all high-traffic areas.
  • Polyester fiber is soft to the touch, but not as durable as nylon. Best suited for low-traffic areas.
  • Olefin fiber is used in indoor/outdoor carpet and in loop-pile carpets. Because of its low resilience, it should only be used in low-traffic areas.
  • Wool fiber is a natural and beautiful carpet fiber. Its more resilient than Polyester and Olefin, but not as resilient as Nylon. Because it's quite a bit more expensive, it would be wise to restrict Wool fiber carpet to low-traffic areas.

Twist

Yarn twist is an important factor in carpet durability. The tighter the yarn twist the better the carpet will resist changes in appearance. Look at the cut ends of the carpet pile to ensure they are neat and tight, not loose and fragmented.

Pile Density

Press your fingers into the face of the carpet (the pile) to see how easy it is to push through to the carpet backing. The harder it is, the denser the pile. Dense is good! Next, bend the carpet into a U-shape with the carpet pile facing out. The less backing you can see the better the density.

Final Tips

  • As a rule, light colored carpets will show stains and soiling sooner than darker carpet. Darker carpet will show lint and most pet hair more readily. Choosing the right color can help hide your most prevalent problems, but should not be chosen so you don't have to clean as often. Keeping your carpet clean, which means regular vacuuming whether it looks like it needs it or not, is crucial to your carpet's longevity.

  • Tweeds, patterned carpet, pebbled textures, and multicolored carpets are wise choices for rooms where soiling and spills can be a problem.

  • Don't forget the padding! All carpet needs a good padding to be durable and retain its appearance over the long term. Padding does more than give your room a nice soft footfall as you walk across it, the padding absorbs foot pressure and reduces carpet stress in high-traffic areas. Choosing the right padding isn't just a matter of choosing the thickest or most expensive. Different types of carpet perform better with different paddings. Your carpet salesperson can help you choose the right padding once you've made your carpet choice.

  • Find out in advance if it's your responsibility or the installers to move the furniture. If it's yours, be ready on time because time is money.

  • Find out who's removing the old carpet if there is any. Some installers will do it, some will not.

  • If you're installing thick carpet and padding, make sure there is clearance at the bottom of any doors that open into the room with the new carpet. The bottoms of the doors may need to be planed so they'll open without rubbing the carpet.

  • If you're going to paint, paint before the new carpet is installed.