posted on October 9, 2000 02:42:44 PM new
I am finally building a house and want to buy some carpeting. I went to one place today and was told that berber carpeting is good because it is easy to clean well but that it doesn't wear very well and another kind wears well but is harder to clean. My husband spills everything and tracks dirt so I want something pretty easy to clean. For all you people who have done this before, is there some happy medium here? I don't have unlimited funds to spend on carpeting either. Anybody know of a web site or anywhere I can get a carpet education? Thanks for any tips!
posted on October 9, 2000 03:15:03 PM new
We put Berber carpet in our family room when we bought this house 12 years ago. We totally trashed it after 6 years. The dirt got down in it and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get clean. I would never get berber again. It looked very bad after just a couple of years, even with cleanings.
Look for a low pile with a very tight twist and very compact. Go to a carpet store and really look at the twists and density of different samples, and you'll soon see what I mean. Keeping the color light will also help you keep it cleaner. We have beige carpet in our living room and up the stairs, it's been down the entire 12 years and still looks good. We always had it cleaned about twice a year, now we have a Hoover Wide Path Carpet Cleaner and we love it. It does a great job.
See the scroll box toward the bottom of the screen, left side. Java is required.
Good hardwood flooring (strip, parquet or mixed) has a much better appreciation and resale value than w/w carpeting, and can always be carpeted. Area rugs on hardwood flooring offer the benefits of both, and the area rugs may be removed to be deep-cleaned offsite, which keeps them looking better longer (everything else being equal).
posted on October 9, 2000 04:47:20 PM new
After spending two flipping days shampooing the carpet (and Im not done yet), I would highly suggest just putting tile throughout the ENTIRE house.
posted on October 9, 2000 07:31:55 PM new
I see some rather UNbanner like behavior here! For shame!!
Hey, ya'll spell checkers come talk to me after shampooing 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, the dinning room, the living room, the den, and the library!
You all are just lucky I can still sit here and spread my wisdom!
[ edited by lotsafuzz on Oct 9, 2000 07:32 PM ]
posted on October 9, 2000 08:10:02 PM new
That does seem a bit much. I have a real steam cleaner (not the hot water kind, but the kind with a boiler); it cleans carpeting very well with a minimum of water and only prespotting--no cleaning solution. No brighteners, defoaming agents, or any of that allergy-inducing jazz, either.
posted on October 10, 2000 05:23:43 AM new
Buy commercial-grade carpeting. Residential carpeting, unless it's top-of-the-line wool, is for the most part j u n k.
posted on October 10, 2000 05:28:40 AM new
Okay, thanks y'all. My husband is still insisting he wants berber, but he doesn't have to clean up after himself. What's wrong with this picture? I think I will just do a couple of bedrooms in carpet and the rest laminated. I'm not Martha Stewart so I need something easy to deal with.
posted on October 10, 2000 06:52:17 AM new
hammerchick - When we moved into our new home, we did the bedrooms in a high grade, thick and tightly woven carpet. The rest of the house is hard wood floors, except the bathrooms. Sooooo easy to care for.
The dust does show much quicker on hardwood floors than it does on carpet though. I just run one of those new floor duster/mops on it every other day and when it needs it I use a slightly damp mop on it. It's a breeze to clean and always looks so nice.
On berber - don't know if you have animals or not, but a friend of ours did their whole house in a good quality berber and their dogs nails are always snagging the loop threads. She said it's easy to clean but being so light, it shows everything. Dark colors show every little flake of lint, light colors show all the dirt.
It's fun getting to decorate a new home, just the way you want it. Enjoy!
posted on October 10, 2000 07:01:12 AM new
hammerchick, I visited several friends in Dalton, Georgia (pareau's link) and what did those folks in "The Carpet Capital of the World" have on their floors? Hardwood!
All these floor surfaces have their advantages and disadvantages - as the other posters have said. Think about how much traffic and dirt those individual areas of your house will get and choose what you think will be appropriate. ( You can bet those homes featured in the pricier magazines are not cleaned by the owners but by their staff. So choose something that you will not be enslaved by. Like HCQ said - commercial carpet holds up better than residential carpet and even comes in some patterns very similar to Berber.)
I've had wool carpet, ceramic tile,and hardwood - and they are all a pain in the butt. They are under foot all day so what can you expect. Just choose the one you think is best for you and know that it'll get dirty sooner or later and some are just easier to clean than others.
posted on October 10, 2000 07:51:57 AM new
Oh - on color. We have a LOT of traffic in Hart Cottage - a dog who sheds 24/7/365, cats, pig ('nuff said), jock with several pairs of cleats, a lintball (moi), and before we had to keep the cats indoors, even the chickens and ducks! (Kinda surprising to have a duck step out of the shower while you're peacefully sitting on the toilet, let me tell you.)
Anyway, we knew What We Were Like before we decorated, so I color-coordinated the flooring to the color of the dirt in our backyard, which around here is a dark taupe. (If we lived a bit further east, it'd have to be more of a rust color.) The walls are decoratively painted in earthtones, and all the furniture is old/looks old; we even got a distressed-leather sofa. Makes a big difference. Now everything looks dirty all the time but at least it's on purpose!
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Oct 10, 2000 07:53 AM ]
posted on October 10, 2000 01:09:40 PM new
I went to a huge carpet store and a salesman whose taste was apparent by his dress and asked him.
"hey. you work with this stuff all day. If I want X, Y, Z, which carpet should I buy?"
where X = price, etc.
Since I have such little taste, I do the same thing everywhere I shop.
'.. hey. you see people buy the wrong watch all day long. My husband has red hair and is an artist hippie type. Which watch should I buy..."
or
"...hey. Which of these glasses make me look dishy as opposed to a fool..?"
When people work 5 days a week at something, they very often are a terrific source. People don't want to ask because they want to go in like they know what they are doing. Bad idea. I have never came home with the wrong product using this method.
".. hey? Which of these green paint chips will not yell *MISTAKE* if I put it on my house..
posted on October 10, 2000 02:32:02 PM newVeryModern: I consider myself style-challenged and use that method when shopping for clothes for a Special Occasion. I come out of the dressing room in the considered outfit and ask the salespeople(and anyone who happens to be hanging around in the store), "Okay, what do I need to make this perfect?"
Usually, they tell me to lose the slouch socks and running shoes first...
Fuzzy: A word of advice for the next time you get the urge to clean carpets-professional rug cleaners.
Okay, that was three words. But I would gladly pay to have someone clean the carpets in my house to save me the hassle of doing it myself.
posted on October 10, 2000 02:56:24 PM new
It's quite interesting to get a loop of Berber caught in a vacuum cleaner..rrrrrriiippp!
Keep in mind the square foot-square yard thing. For example, it's cheaper to buy carpeting at $15 a square yard than $4 a square foot.
We ran into pricing such as that when we purchased carpeting this past summer.
posted on October 10, 2000 04:31:13 PM new
And as long as we've raised the subject of carpet cleaning: Stain-X is the BEST cleaner I've found. Works in the Big Green Clean Machine, the Little Green Doodad, and even just squirted on the remains of e.g. cat barf stains. AND you can also use it as a spot remover on colorfast fabrics, which saved my sorry behind yesterday when I ate some Spaghetti-O's (don't tell!) wearing Val's favorite light grey sweatshirt.
I got a quart for $6 and it dilutes 1oz/1gal of water, which is significantly cheaper than any of the other cleaners I've found. Plus it doesn't leave your house smelling like drugstore perfume.
posted on October 10, 2000 04:58:53 PM new
S-kitty: Where the hell were you four days ago when that little bit of advice could have done me some good?!?
Actually, the plan was to only clean the library and the halls. Problem was, when I cleaned the library carpet the living room carpet looked almost gray in comparision....since both rooms have the same carpet I thought, "Oh, I'll just do the living room" which turned into, "Well, now the dinning room looks dingy so I'll do the dinning room..."
Took the stupid carpet cleaner back today...was never so glad to return something in my life. Never again!!
I will say the carpets are so clean you could eat off of them...although I will break the legs of the first person to spill anything!!
posted on October 11, 2000 08:51:22 AM new
Glad this thread was started. We need new carpeting as well and I WAS leaning towards berber. Guess I'll rethink that one.
Just to add that the padding underneath the carpeting is pretty important, too. The better quality padding helps keep your carpeting looking better much longer and helps keep the high traffic areas from getting tamped down too quickly.
posted on October 11, 2000 09:51:51 AM new
Stainmaster Gold in a high quality carpet.
I first bought it when my daughter was a baby. Unfortunately, I have a thing for white or light grey carpet. But, that Stainmaster Gold was wonderful. We had it professionally cleaned each year (Shadowcat is RIGHT on there) but inbetween, there wasn't anything we couldn't get out.
I put in light grey in our current house & despite 4 cats, a dog, a LOT of yucky stuff coming in from the barn, I still get compliments on it (and it's 7 years old).
Stainmaster Gold is #1 in my book, I'll never have anything else but it (though I think I will forgo the light grey in the future) with the horses around now.
edited for clarity.
[ edited by eventer on Oct 11, 2000 09:53 AM ]
posted on October 11, 2000 10:03:14 AM new
I wanted to jump back in and echo the comment about getting the best padding as well. We used a lesser padding on the hallway going to our bedroom and in the bedroom itself. You can really tell the difference in the crushing of the carpet where the pad is cheaper.
Get the best padding!
As far as carpet cleaners go, I really like our Hoover Wide Path. I can do the living room in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. It is easy to use, it works like an upright sweeper. It also works very well on furniture, using the small attachment. The shampoo they sell to use with it is great. I couldn't believe the dirt it pulled up out of the cushions and the carpet itself. Worth every penny and more, especially with 4 kids and 3 cats on beige carpet.
posted on October 11, 2000 10:10:57 AM new
When I was choosing a Persian kitten from the litter, I picked the one whose fur color most closely resembled my carpet. Good decision.
posted on October 14, 2000 10:24:33 PM new
I investigated and bought new carpet about a year ago (maybe two years). Definitely don't get berber - they look great but things (dog nail, high heels) snag on it.
There is one carpet that is definitely superior to all others. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the name of it. It was new when I bought mine. It is stain-proof. Not stain-resistant, stain-PROOF!!! Amazing stuff. BLEACH doesn't hurt it. A friend (who owns a carpet store) didn't believe this. He took a piece of this carpet (in a medium-blue) and SOAKED it in bleach overnight. It did NOT affect the color at all. I have it in three rooms now and it will go in the rest of the house when I can afford it.
It's in my two sons' bedroom and their playroom. I have three big dogs and three long-haired cats. We're talking serious dirt (red koolaid, soda, diarrhea from 130 lb dog). But it cleaned up like new.
Get neutral colors if you can - they hide the dirt better (but I have dark colors because that's what the boys wanted).
This stuff is indestructable. I can't praise it enough. Don't let the salesmen sell you something else (because it's just as good, etc.). This particular carpet came with a stain-PROOF guarantee.
Of course, it's not cheap. I seem to remember that I paid $15 or $16 / sq. yard (that that was the longest-nap). It's beautiful - very lush. Carpetlayers don't like it because it's a pain to lay - it's so lush that it's very stiff and hard to work with.
posted on October 15, 2000 08:19:45 AM new
One thing to keep in mind: The longer the nap, the more every footprint is going to show. That's why commercial carpet has a short nap - high- and low-traffic areas don't end up looking different.
What you need to look for, no matter what nap you choose, is the heaviest (i.e., tightest-woven) carpet. There are usually several grades offered of the same design, and you can tell by looking at the back side of the carpet which grade has more loops or tufts per inch. (Actually you can tell that just from the price!)
Important - GET A SAMPLE of the carpet you purchase. When the installers arrive, compare the back of the sample with the roll of carpeting. One installer tried to give me the cheaper version of the same style/color, assuming I wouldn't notice.
