Putting in light coloured carpets???

Duchesslady

Hi

I am brand new to the forum and look forward to many postings with you all. :beer:

We are thinking of replacing our carpets in our 3 bedroom detached house.

It is obviously a family house and when we sell it it will almost certainly be bought by a family.

Would they take one look at our oatmeal colour carpets and immediately think they would have to replace them?

What do you think is the best carpet to lay in a family house???

Cheers

SuzanneB_2

I suppose it all really depends on how long you intend on living there. You might find that after a few years you have to replace them for your own use and maybe then you can rethink as to what you lay this time.

busymumof3

Hello Duchesslady

Welcome to the MSE forum and congrats on your first post!

As for light coloured carpets. We had a very light sand-coloured carpet laid in our living room, hall, stairs and landing in our last house. I loved the colour, still do but boy was it stressful keeping it from being wrecked. Had it stain guarded obviously but felt that I was constantly monitoring kids to avert disaster and doing daily spot cleaning. Also specially bought a steam cleaner for it!

We sold the house about a year ago after having the carpet down about a year. It still looked really good and probably positively influenced sale. Not sure whether this would be true a few more years down the line though.

I was very pleased to see that our new house has a dark green carpet throughout the ground floor. Still spend a lot of time on my hands and knees cleaning it. Perhaps your children are a bit less messy than mine though!

When kids are older I probably would be tempted to lay a lighter coloured carpet again. Horses for courses I suppose.

Lemoncurd

As a family with a 2 1/2 year old and baby we have just put in cream carpets throughout upstairs. We had them in the last three (rented) places too (two of those with 1st baby) and had no concerns. Personally I think dark carpets can show the dirt just as much (imagine milky baby sick on a dark carpet!).

mekondelta

Light-coloured carpets are fine. Just buy indoor slippers for everyone and make sure no-one walks inside the house with outdoor shoes on. It's simple, cuts the amount of cleaning and is surprisingly easy to live with.

busymumof3

Having lived with both in the last year, dark carpets are definitely more practical for us at the moment. How old are your kids? I have a football daft 10 year old boy who seems incapable of understanding "take your trainers/football boots off on the mat", a 4 year old who gravitates from the kitchen table to the family room with finger foods/snacks, and a toddler whose latest trick is to help himself to yoghurts from the fridge and generally create chaos!

We never wear shoes in the house and most visitors take their outdoor shoes off too. But I have to say that my hall carpet is much easier to keep with a dark carpet and a matwell than it was with a light carpet and a large vinyl floored vestibule.

Probably my lowered stress levels also helped by knowing that the current carpet was not paid for by us and will have a limited life until the kids are a bit older. The light carpet was lovely but cost an absolute fortune and I would have been really upset to have had it spoiled.

At the end of the day only you know whether it would stress you out to have a less than immaculate carpet. We all have different housekeeping standards. Also if you don't plan to spend a fortune on it then I wouldn't worry too much either. And you can always relay a cheaper carpet on top of recent underlay and gripper rods for reselling if need be. We sold out 3 bed semi to a couple with no children who will learn in time that light carpets and children do not mix!

vansboy

We've a lightish tan 'Weetabix' weaved pattern on the stairs/landing & it's fine after 2 years - no shoes allowed - as mentioned above.

Spare bedrooms have a light cream & does mark easily, so needs care, other bedroom we got a super deal on an almost white, with light gold flecks in it. Sounds horrid, but looks really nice - BUT it didn't look as 'white' in the store, or with the tiny sample, we had! Worth getting as big a sample to test with, first.

Downstairs, laminate won the choice!!

VB

frugglewump

I grew up in a house with a light carpet. My parents got a golden-cream one because it was the same colour as the shed hair from our golden retrievers. It's still there today 20 years later and looks fine.

quatro

If you get a wool mixture carpet you should be ok. In one house there was a cream/fleck berber carpet throughout the ground floor and I had teenage boys then. I even mopped up and cleaned a large red wine spillage once and couldn't see a trace of it afterwards. 3 years later I sold the house with the same carpet - it still looked fine!

moggins

We have a cream carpet in the dining room which unfortunately is the walkway through to the kitchen and bathroom. If you are going to have light carpets in a heavy traffic area then I would suggest buying a good carpet cleaner like the Vax Rapide.

It took me 7 months to convince DH to let me buy one but now he admits that we should have done it ages ago after he spent 2 hours cleaning the carpet and still ending up with black waste water