Plush. In ivory. Not beige. Ivory.

I think the shag will go away pretty soon. Even though it's shorter this time, it's still got the same problems it did 30 years ago. I've never cared for Berber. Most of what I have seen is the sculptured, but if not, then it was so low that it reminded me of industrial carpeting.

I know you are anxious to get this done, but I would wait until you find the furniture you love and then decide if it won't be a huge hassle for installation later. Also, since you have changed the house so much, the light will be different and you are going to want to be bring home a bunch of samples and walking over them for a couple of weeks.

Is this the bedrooms? Hallways? Where? If it's the bedrooms, I'd get plush. It does develop more of a traffic pattern wear, but that should be a few years down the road with just the two of you.

Gloria

We have berber and it works very well with heavy traffic areas. We clean ours often because we have two dogs. I think it is a preference on which one is better. I don't like plush but other people do. I always think that plush is harder to clean but I don't know that for sure.

-renee

Hello,

Carpet is such a big decision. Been there done that several times. Sigh. Some choices were not so good. I have learned.

Three times I have had Berber and I LOVE it. BUT I only love the Berber that does not have a pattern cut into it. If it is patterned or sculpted it is hard to clean because your vacuum does not go into the grooves well.

The Berber cleans like a dream . I have a Hoover steam and vac, not sure where the steam part comes in. LOL I had very light carpet in the last Berber with slight flecks of color so whatever color furniture I had in that room it pulled the colors from the carpet. We have dogs and cats and when we moved after 4 years the carpet looked almost as it did when it was new.

One other thing we did in one house and I would do it again . We had NO pad. We glued the Berber directly to the floor. It seemed to me there was not as much dust collected in the carpet. I will also do that here when we change the carpet someday. The last Berber house had cement slab so we did use a thin pad as recommended by the installer. Here we just have regular floors so it will be a glue down.

I made the mistake of getting a dark Berber in one house and was disappointed. But then I have poor vision and need light and bright to be able to see well.I agree go woth ivory.

Good luck. Maggie

Thanks so much, Maggie, I had been looking at the Berber with the pattern cut into it. I was concerned about the fact that the pattern has a lot of loss because they have to match but I never thought about the vacuuming of it.
Gloria, you always have a good take on it--the light will really be different as we have skylights and balconys where we had windows before. Since we don't live there yet--wood floors go in 19th its hard to tell.
Renee--it it can stand up to dogs thats something--i had heard that berber unraveled easily.
well back to looking at all these samples. Of course maybe if I just stitched all the samples together I would have something that even Martha doesn't have.

do hardwood everywhere--tremendous resale value. and then you can use area rugs or hemmed carpet squares.

But then, I have allergies and a cat who throws up a lot.

I have sculpted berber in an oatmeal color and have no problem cleaning it with the vacuum, I have it professionally leanded twice a year. I would be concerned about gluing carpet to the floor when it was time to remove it.

I knew a minister's family when I was in high school. Little church and I'm sure they didn't pay much. The teen girls room was actually an old pantry. They did exactly what Marge said, and put together carpet samples. Every height, color and style and covered the living room and dining room. Now, I realize that house had old wood floor (it was probably a 100 years old then) and I'm sure they were in bad shape and cold in the winter. But that carpet covering had to driven the keeper of the house crazy. I thought it was pretty neat.

Gloria

Sounds like my old room Gloria. (or the story of the little match girl)
Actually Tally I had to be convinced to get wood floors in half of the house. The carpet is on the West side which faces the ocean (8 blocks down the hill) that breeze can curl your hair when the wind whips up. I like to do things late at night and would freeze with wood floors.
We don't have to worry about resale value--we are on a double lot and when we sell they will tear down the house and put up two that are at least two stories and take advantage of the view.
I am going to go and look at some more samples at a diferent place. thanks so much.

Bonelady just this last summer the people did remove that glued down carpet and they said it was a real job to get it up. It had been through a flood and I thought it might have made it less sticky but they said it was on there soild. I still would do it again since it was so easy to clean. Maybe now they have something else or another way to attach it besides glue.

We had hardwood once and as prettyas it was it made me crazy trying to keep it up. I do love the look of it.

Maggie

My mother chose -- get ready for this -- deep RED wall to wall plush carpet for her house. This was a 1930s brick cape cod with nice hardwood floors, but she did not like taking care of wood floors. Over the years, we had had pinkish beige wool carpet (used, but excellent quality, given to us when a rich relative recarpeted their house) and in the 1970s, sculpted gold nylon carpet (hideous). Oddly enough, the red carpet looked beautiful. It did not get much wear and tear (she had this done after my father died and she was living there alone, with one cat, for the most part, although some of my sisters stayed with her at times), and when she sold the house, the carpet was not an issue. I don't know if the new owner pulled it up or not.

Our house had the orginal 1965 shag. It also had a high quality pad, so the wear on the carpet was not what you would have expected. I think the padding is really important for the feel and wear of the carpet. I would go with a middle of the road quality carpet, but put the best pad available with it. That chipped foam stuff will compact and not give you good wear.

We don't have a floor drain on our lower level, where we have three bedrooms and the laundry room. I don't have any carpet except for the master bedroom. The DH tends to drop his hearing aides there and I'd rather not have to deal with broken aides. But I also didn't want ruined flooring if we had a flood from the washing machine. I put down a short plush, but no pad. Just cut to fit without any glue or tacking. We are only in the room to go to bed and get up. It feels very hard and I would not do this in a space I spend much time or want true walking comfort.

Gloria

I can understand the deep red. It's the closest you can get to a true oriental carpet. The oriental carpets that most "disappear into the background," in my mind, are the dark red or maroon ones.

If I were going w/ carpet, that's what I'd get.

Yes, the red was almost like a neutral. She had a black and white toile couch and loveseat and beige walls and curtains, plus some colorful artwork and plants. That was a nice house.

We have wood floors in our house, which I love, but when we chose area rugs for the living room, I wanted oriental red ones. They also have the advantage of not showing dirt, and the wool repels stains.

If I can stop packing up and cleaning the house for our move in (within 2 weeks or less) I will take pics of the laundry room. My husband put white tile on a small platform which drains to a floor sink. and the machines are on top of it. We have wood floors in that room. There is tile in back of the washer and dryer as well. I also am not sure how to insert the pics. How is that done? I have a website of my own can I link to that? I don't need to use photobucket or easyshare then.
By the way, deep colored carpet is being aggressively shown in carpet stores. I guess people are going to need something different for them to feel beige is replaceable.

We are going to have wood floors in most of the house, except for the bedrooms because my husband picked up Boukhara oriental carpets and other kinds also, on his travels for business and evidently knows about carpets. He gets in long serious discussions with the Armenian carpet guys.

Just linking to your site is the easiest way. Is a floor sink different from a floor drain?

Hire someone to do this packing and cleaning stuff for you marge. You're going to be so tired you won't even get to enjoy your new space.

Gloria

We have mostly hardwood throughout our home, but chose to carpet one large room that opens to the backyard. When I went to select the carpet, I literally told the salesperson I wanted "dirt" colored carpet because I knew there would be a fair amount of traffic through that room.

We found a beautiful shade of light tan in a low pile that has worked out perfectly! Don't be afraid of talking to the salesperson about exactly where the carpet will be installed in your home, the amount of traffic, and your honest input on how often it will be vacuumed. He/She can make some excellent suggestions :-)

We have the thick and "flat" un-sculpted berber (and we were told it would likely NOT hold up with animals because of the ravel thing--but we have a caged bird so it didn't matter) with an upgraded pad underneath. Because it's flat on top, the debris shows (crumbs, threads, dirt clods, whatever) so it usually looks like it needs to be vacuumed. My big mistake was getting a light gray... I really thought if DH paid for it he would be more careful about not walking through the room with muddy shoes, and would stop eating in the living room and wipe up what he spilled... but I was wrong.

If I had it to do over (and DH didn't have a say in it), I would get the fake hardwood flooring (we have the real wood floors everywhere else and I hate them) and a berber-type area rug to keep down the chill in the winter.

P.S. Berber is better quality than the industrial carpet you're talking about (we have that at work and it's more of an indoor-outdoor type carpet with no cushion).

We have mostly hardwood throughout our home, but chose to carpet one large room that opens to the backyard. When I went to select the carpet, I literally told the salesperson I wanted "dirt" colored carpet because I knew there would be a fair amount of traffic through that room.

We found a beautiful shade of light tan in a low pile that has worked out perfectly! Don't be afraid of talking to the salesperson about exactly where the carpet will be installed in your home, the amount of traffic, and your honest input on how often it will be vacuumed. He/She can make some excellent suggestions :-)

Thanks all, Julie mi--I have the fake maple vinyl flooring in this apartment and love it. It looks like real plank, and its softer than real wood floors.
Gloria--a floor sink has six inch border, tiled, so its like a footbath. with faucets. Above is where we can hang drip drys. Thanks, I will see if I can figure out how to put stuff on the website, I do know how to link.

Well I finally ordered jade green (pale) low pile. we couldn't decide because I didn't really like any color of beige.
Just watch--Martha Stewart is probably going to do a whole issue on "green, green --for freshness" she steals all of my ideas.

It really was great not to have to pick this stuff at the start of the building because now I was able to change my mind. Since we have Esmeralda Verde granite in the closet on the counters and in the bathroom I can have kind of a green accent that will go with the orchids I plan to put nextto the bathtub. We have a ladder that goes up to the skylight and I have suggested to my husband that I could put a small stuffed monkey on the ladder. Somebody just gave us a mask from Africa and already I have a decorating theme.
Does this sound like something Better Homes and Gardens will be dying to photograph--or am I just tired of remodeling and ready for a rest home?

Well, if BH & G turns you down, I'll come do it so they'll know what they missed. The monkey sounds great, but the granite will have to go. And I'm sure you're going to want spider plants instead of those orchids. Sigh. Some people just have no taste.

Gloria

Just watch--Martha Stewart is probably going to do a whole issue on "green, green --for freshness" she steals all of my ideas.

You're late--that was September 2003.

green is Martha's favorite color; in fact, the company often speaks of "Martha green"--though I haven't figured out exactly WHICH green is "Martha" green.

Jadite or commonly called Nile green. No one really collected Jadite kitchen stuff and it was everywhere since they were cheap givaways during the depression. Now, with Martha having her collections of this, the prices are pretty high for some of the original stuff. I have a depression era towel bar of jadite glass. They are going for around $50 on eBay.

The paint I have for the entry hall ceiling is a jadite color. I have old globes in the light fixtures with jadite trim. In quilts it was always called Nile green, which is just a tad brighter than the glassware color.

Nice color.

Gloria

Here is a link that might be useful: Martha's green

Your place sounds great Gloria.We are hoping to move in next weekend and enjoy all this stuff. except now that they are putting in the maple floors I hate them. (or maybe its buyers remorse) I'll take pics later.

Our enclosed breezeway is being renovated into a cozy little 12X12 room. After removing the old ashphalt tiles, we have a concrete floor. We thought about ceramic tile but the installation was going to cost too much so I decided on indoor-outdoor sculptured carpeting, which is berber-like.
We have two dogs who use the room for going back and forth to the back yard...and a couple of cats who will no doubt want to laze out there. Do you think that carpeting will hold up well? The contractor wants to glue it to the concrete floor.

yeah, I think that's what "Martha green" started out being, but I've seen them call something "Martha green" when it wasn't really that Jadeite color.

mary, our tile installation wasn't too bad. I picked a glazed sculptured terra cotta for $1.50 a tile and installing cost $5.50 a square foot. My main deciding factor was that this was a cement slab. We had almost 500 square feet. The grout lines catch everthing. Sigh.

I'm not sure you will be happy with a carpet glued to cement. It's going to feel really hard. What about the laminate, which looks like tile? It will give some cushion and stand up to the wear and tear of the pets and be much easier to clean. I think those look really nice. I have a friend who did her main living level with the stuff. Laminate installation here costs $2.50 a square foot.

Gloria

Gloria, thanks so much for your reply. I was already fearful of the glued carpet idea, and you just made up my mind. The grout cleaning was another issue I had with tile, but I bet your floor looks pretty. I like the laminate idea really well and am going to hold off on the contractor till I can check some out tomorrow. He is a little pushy and wants to get it over with, but too bad, I will have to live with it for a long time, right? Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

mary1helen2--too bad if your contractor is in a hurry. You have to live with stuff a long time. Laminate is great. Actually we have vinyl in a wood pattern in this apt kitchen
in an oak pattern and I like it a lot.
thanks everybody for your advice. Our carpeting went in today. One of the exterior balcony doors won't clear it but except for that the green looks wonderful.