i'm not sure it's as easy as telling you what texture, thickness and pad to get given your circumstances. :)

i'm building a new house, and we just had to research and choose carpet for our bedrooms, so I can tell you what I've learned and maybe that is helpful to you!

there are 2 major fiber types in carpet nowadays... polyester and nylon. Polyester is the cheap stuff, and Nylon is the more premium. Polyester has good stain resistance, but Nylon has stain resistance AND texture resilience, meaning, you're not going to wear traffic marks into your carpet in the matter of a year. I'm not in the industry so I could get getting this next part wrong, but there's a newer type called SmartStrand, which isn't strictly either polyester or nylon, but it acts more like nylon in that it's capable of a very long life. So that's all about the fiber. that said, i don't think you can tell just by looking and touching in a carpet/flooring store one from the other... you have to read the labels! (P.E.T. is polyester)

we decided on what i would consider expensive carpet that doesn't look like anything particularly special, but because we're building this house with the intent to live in it forever, we wanted to invest in carpet we won't have to change out in a few years. we landed on Mohawk, SmartStrand Silk with Dupont Sorona in a textured style with different colored flecks of color. the "silk" in the name means it's SUPER soft, and it really is amazingly soft. it's got crazy warranties (25 years on abrasive wear, 25 year texture retention, 25 year fade resistance, LIFETIME stain resistance, LIFETIME soil resistance, LIFETIME pet urine resistance, LIFETIME anti-static).

if you're TRULY planning to sell your home very soon, then i wouldn't spend the money on it because carpeting is one of those things for new home buyers - they can be very fickle. :) some will rip out carpet and replace it just out of principle, others are going to rip it out because they detest carpet and prefer wood or tile... and i don't think there are any circumstances where a particular style of carpet would be what closes the deal when you go to sell.

any new carpet is going to wear fine for at least a short time if you're not staying too long. plus, see my previous note about not being able to see the difference without looking at the label. if you were choosing for resale alone, i'd go with a polyester frieze style because it's on the more modern side and gives the impression that it's newer. Our local flooring store had "entry level" but nice Shaw (among others) polyester frieze style for about $2/sq foot including tearing out current carpet, and installing the new with a 6lb 1/2" pad which is your basic pad.

the carpet we chose goes for about $5.25/sq foot with the same installation. separately, we're also upgrading our pad, though i can't remember the specifics of it.

hope that helps!

That does help a lot, thank you. One salesman did tell me that polyester was better than nylon and to get a soft backing rather than a stiff one. He gave me several reasons but I can't remember them, something about easier when they stretch it.

I thought carpet was sold by the square yard though. Not anymore?

ours is sold by the square yard via our builder, but when we just went to browse flooring stores, they quote everything in price per square foot, because obviously the number is less scary. i think HD and Lowes started pricing it per square foot, then all the smaller shops started to do it as well.

polyester is definitely not better than nylon, unless your only criteria is which is less expensive. :)

Maggiepie, can you tell us the style name and color name of your carpet? We have been looking for something with a bit of texture and flecks of color. Thanks.

We are carpet shopping, too, for our basement. Here is my only suggestion: make sure not to get a pinky-brown undertone!!!

Why anele? When I looked, I tried to avoid the yellow undertones.

i can tell you the name/style of the carpet at one store, but the stupid carpet industry changes the style name from store to store so you can't "shop around."

you can find the equivalent of my carpet at Mohawk's website under the name "Serenity", though it only lists 5 colors there. there are really 8-9 colors, and you can see the rest by looking at the style called "Amazing Inspiration"

we selected "sculpture gray #550" for the color because we wanted to go a bit darker than our last house. i find carpet always looks lighter on the floor than you expect. if i were choosing strictly from the swatches i would have gone with "Spiced rum" which has lots of nice gray flecks in it but is lighter than the sculpture gray.

here are some pics:

this is the sculpture gray in the less dense carpet (Amazing Inspirations)

and here's the spiced rum:

both look a bit gold on my screen, but in person they're not gold at all.

Oh thank you maggiepie! Great advice, and we are looking for a gray too. This will really help us as we begin this adventure!

A week after we bought LR/DR carpet this summer, our upstairs washer flooded, so the insurance company replaced the upstairs carpet. We now have a houseful of new carpet! Yay! I liked the softness of Smartstrand but wasn't sure about the longevity of corn-based polyester. People do seem to love it, but be sure your vacuum is compatible as they can bog down in the soft fibers.

We found a Shaw Tuftex carpet that felt as soft as Smartstrand yet is Anso nylon. It's the pattern Move On Up, and it is flecked, which hides spotting. I constantly cleaned spots on our old solid colored carpet, and this one shows nothing. We couldn't find one as soft as Move On Up for the upstairs, so we bought the same one, but in a different color.

After we bought ours, Shaw came out with a new, more expensive line of beautiful soft carpet called Caress. It's meant to compete with Smartstrand.

Pretty much anything in the $3 a square foot range up will be decent quality. You want nylon or smartstrand. For a bedroom, nothing beats a plush for comfort under foot. It feels exactly like it sounds, like plush velvet on your bare feet. But, if seeing your footprints or vacuum tracks bothers you, maybe a plush isn't for you. Maybe you'd want a frieze, which is a short shag. But, you walk on the sides of the fibers on a frieze, so it won't be as durable as with a plush where you walk on the ends of the strands. However, it will hide traffic paths more, and can also feel soft because of the bulk of the yard. All carpet these days has built in stain protection except for the very cheapest, so don't let something like that in a "name" deter you from buying what feels and looks best to you. As with anything, take it home and see how it feels underfoot to you.

Or, you could do the matching wood (did you ever get that project done?) in the bedrooms (selling upgrade) and have a really nice wool carpet edgebound to be a large area rug underneath. You get the benefit of taking the rug with you at selling time then.

live_wire_oak, we decided against wood in the bedroom. Dh wanted carpet and the calcium carbonate test was over the 3 lb limit. So we put a moisture barrier on the slab in the bedrooms and will put carpet back in.

We'll probably go with a grade that is higher than the typical builder grade and in a plush style, similar to the carpet that is there now. It's similar to the type Maggie showed and has held up well.

Marti, I find that color (pink-brown) very limiting, but that is only my opinion! What wall color do you have?

We haven't settled on a wall color yet. Was going to go with a light gray/blue but didn't like it. Now we're considering antique white.

This is my very untrained opinion-- if you don't mind an antique white with some pink in it, I do think the pink-brown is a good choice. I personally do not mind pink, but my DH would, which is why I am avoiding this. If the antique white leans slightly more yellow, then I think it is less likely to work. If the the carpet has other tones (like green), then I think you have many options.

Not sure if you are referring to a specific antique white, either. In which case, I would be of no help anyway!