Buying carpets for a family home

babybimbles

We are trying to buy carpet for our lounge, four bedrooms and loft. We have shopped around and have been advised to go for a 100% polypropylene (sp?), stain resistant, bleach cleanable carpet as we have four kids 4mths - 8 yrs.

The thing is I don't really like anything. I would really like a berber wool mix twist pile but have been told the pilling will create problems for my dh who has mild asthma. Having said that, I've researched online and found that on the contrary, wool carpet is hypoallergenic and thus suitable.

Now stain factor is very important to me but I just dislike the man made stuff. For the bedrooms i'd like a berber loop style, again wool mix.

What would be the best carpet to go for? We are looking to spend around £10 - £12 p/sqm in the bedroom and a little bit more in the lounge. I saw a wool twist berber today for £19.99.

Also: I have two daughters sharing a room, one dd in her own room and one ds in his own room. I would prefer one neutral colour for all of them but this isn't essential. Should I go for something different for each of them?

tia

adj_2

Hi,

Can't answer all of your questions, but interested to hear that you have found the wool twist carpets are hypoallergenic....

We recently bought carpets, and were also advised against wool because of my own asthma and eczema. I had been told to steer clear becasue of my allergies. Know it's probably different because contact with my skin could have caused problems for my eczema, but also our local carpet shop bloke says he always advises against the wool for asthmatics too. I erred on the side of caution, both my conditions are prone to reactions from just about everything and anything. How serious is your husband's asthma? It's just that in the past I have often found so-called 'hypoallergenic' products to set me off just as much.

Doozergirl

I'd look in a different shop as I wasn't convinced by manmade carpet at all but our carpet guy convinced me by giving me something that I genuinely thought was wool to look at without telling me it was polypropelene. I couldn't really argue with him after I'd said I liked it the best! It hasn't got that awful sheen to it like most of the manmade carpets I've seen and it has a really decent twist pile.

We have always bought 80% wool twist but this stuff now is so much easier to clean - I've had paint and all sorts on my carpet and it comes off with just water so I don't end up with the soap left in the carpet attracting grubby marks instead.

babybimbles

Well I googled 'asthma' and 'wool' carpet and found a lot of research suggesting wool is actually better as a natural fibre. Having said that, there's no point getting a lovely carpet the kids are going to kill in a week! But I can't find a nice man made one similar to the berber twist. The flecks make the carpet look very nice and would hide a lot of stains but i'm worried I won't be able to get ribena stains out!

Any other suggestions?