I can only answer a few of your questions. We have new construction with mostly hardwood. For the greatroom and office we went with the frieze shorter pile.

It doesn't leave vacuum or footprints. I'm not familiar with the brand you are looking at but would suggest going with the best you can afford. It's only one room. We went with the middle grade padding but because it was "builder's" middle grade, it's not nearly thick enough. Good padding is as important as the carpet for both comfort and longevity.

I don't know if frieze will be a fad or not and don't really care. I love the looks of it and would pick it over plush any day.

Love our frieze, it was here when we bought, so I dont know the type or pad. I think they are both high end. I know its better to upgrade the pad before you upgrade the carpet level. With out a good pad the carpet, (no matter how good) will not last as long. When I vacuum you can tell its vacuumed. Our pile is not a shag but its not super low. Only the first few foot marks are noticable, after that it looks fine. I would never go back to plush.

I have Shaw frieze, low pile, and love it. No footprints at all. Get the best pad you can afford.

We too have Shaw frieze, low pile. We love it. No footprints, and I believe we have the 6lb pad (we asked for the best one they have).

The only drawback, and this is huge for me, is don't drop an earring. You'll never see it again.

We had a low-pile tight frieze in our previous house's master bedroom - Milliken's Tesserae Spectrum carpet tile. We are not really carpet people but between the slight texture and the flecked pattern it did work well for not showing footprints, vacuuming marks, pet hair, etc. We chose the carpet tile because pets are part of the family and we wanted to be able to just pop out a damaged or stained bit to clean or replace it. We also saved a chunk on the installation because even for total DIY klutzes it was easy to put down. It was a 45 ounce all-nylon carpet with an 8 pound pad attached, with a moisture barrier in between the two.

Unlike snookums, I didn't have problems with dropped earrings, which is good because I knocked my (stud) earrings off the nightstand with great regularity. :-) Maybe it was because the gold showed up brightly against the olive/brown flecked carpet.

Were I to install carpet in my current house I would not hesitate one bit to use it again.

We have a custom rug business & can tell you that frieze is something we use all the time. It is basically a low shag which is vacuum friendly...meaning it won't get caught in your vacuum's beater bar. It doesn't show vacuum marks and in my proffessional opinion wears better than a plush carpet. As far as a rubber pad, here is the rule...if you have the carpet/rug with rubber backing or rubber pad you do not want to use it on hardwood flooring if there is any chance the rug would get wet as the rubber would end up damaging the hardwood floors. Hope that helps!

I thought I had all the info about my house in a folder but I can't seem to find the stats on my carpet. All I know is that it's frieze and we got it in the master bedroom and throughout the upstairs. I have the colors written down, seductive for the master and coconut cream upstairs. No footprints and we love the feel. The master has the little dark speckles in it and it never shows a thing. DH's socks used to leave little bits of dark thread that made me nuts. I'm sure they still do so I vacuum every now and then, but I sure don't see them!

We had the Shaw frieze, low pile in the bedrooms at our last house. I think the color was "London Fog"? Ours was the 'barber pole' style which I'm guessing is the same as the twist you are referring to? I dug around and found a few pics. The carpet was great (showed minimal vacuum/footprints). In the bedroom pic, I think you can see some vacuum marks if you look close, but they never bothered me. We had the rubber pad and loved it. We had so many compliments on that carpet.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shaw frieze carpet, low pile

We have a Milliken Frieze in a beige color called Banana Cream. We used an 8 pd pad.

Thank you all for affirming! I'm excited! Gotta paint first, though.
I've decided on 8 lb. pad.

Now I'm torn between two colors of carpet a mid brown color with tone on tone flecks or a richer deep brown with tone on tone flecks...any opinions? I'm leaning toward the darker but am just not sure if there's be any drawbacks. My wall paint color will be SW Divine White--I'm going lighter! The wood colors in the room are rich warm browns so either color will go.
Great pic, thanks you for sharing!

It's for our smallish living room--no pets or children just the two of us.

Thanks again!

janie - What kind of dog do you have? I thought it was a deer when I first glanced at the picture. What a sweet face.

Laurie

I find that medium color carpets stay clean looking much longer. I had a darker brown carpet once and it looked bad very fast, it showed lint and cat hair very quickly.

I have a medium tone frieze now and it shows nothing. Of course I still vacuum it often.

I have short twisted frieze and it does show footprints and vacuum marks right after I vacuum but in a few hours they all blend togeather.

I have to tell you this story. My sister had a light frieze for two years at her last house. She is a chain smoker. After she moved out, there was a a big square of light carpet under where her bed had been - and the carpet surrounding it was almost black! EWWWWWWWWWWW!

Yikes - can you imagine what her lungs must look like!!

We bought this house a couple years ago. It has "frieze" carpet in the master/dining. Yesterday we purchased a Dysan DC15 vacuum. We noticed it is leaving "rows" or it looks like the cat clawed it up ... from the brush.

Anyone know if it is safe to use a Dysan DC15 on this carpet?

catkin, here is a picture of our brown bedroom carpet. Yes, it shows things quicker than a more neutral color would but I love it. ps...blue walls are gone :( I messed up big time on the shade of blue and the only way DH would pay to have it redone is to get rid of the blue all together.

Thank you all! I'm going to take the advice and go with the medium brown with lighter and darker tone on tone flecks!