Choosing the Right Carpet

Choosing Carpet for Your Lifestyle

You walk on it everyday; you clean it each week; your children spill milk on it five minutes after you clean it; why it's YOUR carpet. With all this wear and tear, perhaps you think it is time to purchase some new carpet for your home. Maybe you are building a home and flooring is now your biggest issue. How do you choose carpeting? What are the most important aspects?

Your most important consideration is location.
High traffic areas such as hallways, living rooms, and stairs should have high quality carpet. Although you may have to pay significantly more for this carpet, the payoffs will be huge in the long run. If you do not have quality carpet in these areas, you will probably have to replace it in half the time that you would need for carpet in low-wear areas.

You will also want to think about who will be on the carpet.
If you have children, you may want to consider purchasing stain-resistant carpet. Although the price is significantly higher, the carpet will last for years, maybe even decades, longer than it would otherwise. If you have small children, then you also want to be sure that the carpet is soft enough that they can comfortably crawl around every room.

When choosing carpet, color is also a major consideration.
The color of your carpet will determine the décor of your home and may also determine the resale value of the house. If you expect to move at any time in the near future, then you should be careful to pick a generic color for the carpet, preferably a medium tan. Choosing green or pink carpets or even gray can make it much harder for you to sell your home. Additionally, having pink carpet will forever force you to make your decorations match the color of the carpet. Also, a light tan color or a white will make spills very obvious. In order to keep your carpet looking clean, a darker color will be very valuable. Patterned carpet, perhaps a tan with gray flecks, will make the carpet match almost any décor while also hiding spills and problem areas.

Finally, you should consider the cost of the carpet.
If you do not expect to keep your house for many years, you may not want to pay top dollar for the most technologically advanced carpet. Buy a carpet that will last while not costing a fortune. You don’t want to lose money when you sell your house, because you spent a fortune on carpet that you can’t take with you.

Carpet is a huge decision, so before making any purchases talk to friends and neighbors about they like and don’t like about their carpet. Also, you should talk to a reputable carpet dealer about the positives and negatives of each carpet and visit the store to see samples; they never look the same on the computer and you also want to know how your new carpet will feel.
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Rhonda Morin, owner of http://myinteriordecorator.com and author of The Decorating Bible, enjoys writing and teaching others how to decorate the homes of their dreams.
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Copyright (R) Rhonda Morin, MyInteriorDecorator.com. Article may not be reprinted without permission and may not be reprinted without author byline including the active links.

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