Pretty carpet or sensible one?

We decided to have laminate in the back of the house where we spend most of our time. With a light rug by the sofas it's cosy but practical, especially when the grandchildren come .... and dropped food is easily cleaned. I want our family to feel welcome and comfortable when they are here, not always having to "Be careful of Grandma's carpet". That, along with washable dining chair covers means they and we don't worry about inevitable messes.

I have Cream carpet in lounge and bedrooms and it does show the dirt. My kitchen diner and hallway however are oak flooring with a very hard wearing sealant. This is fantastic and I would have it everywhere if I could, I do have a lovely rug on the oak in the dining room and hall to soften and brighten.

I find darker carpets show every mark & bits of fluff etc. I'd much rather have a lighter one & plenty of carpet cleaner!

If you really want a light coloured carpet go for an acrylic.
Not in my opinion as classy as 80% wool but acrylic stained carpet is easier to keep clean than wool.

Our neighbours have wood flooring it's very noisy can hear every step and movement
We are looking to get a carpet for our through lounge we have a brown suite and at moment we have a cream/beige carpet it's ok but boring . Kim I agree with you re rugs and trips rugs are not recommended as you get older ?

I love a gold/sand colour for carpet it sort of gives you some light back. Mine looked lovely for years.

I now have quality vinyl pretending to be wood and it never shows any dirt.......so liberating when life is full of kids and dogs, and me dropping stuff all the time. Not warm but big slippers get over that.

Addendum....... because I forgot (!!)......... I did consider wood floor with rugs but was advised that rugs are a MAJOR cause of tripping in later life. Decided to go with that flow at the request of children and a bit of boring old common sense. Check out the domestic falls statistics.

light carpets here and we dont ask people to take shoes off,my other half is very good at shampooing ithem when I point out a stain or like last week when GD spilt red powdered food colouring all over the living room carpet ( it was an accident granny ,the kitten knocked it out of my hand ...lol) Thankfully I have never been precious about things ...its just a carpet and after some serious scrubbing it looks as good as new.We do have a good shampooer ,a bex bissell ,we've had it for about 10 years bought it for our rental property as tenants can often leave a bit of a mess and it has been very well used and gives great results

All my carpets are light in colour and I just use carpet spot cleaner if something gets spilled on them.

I had the longed for cream patterned lounge carpet fitted December 2015. We do the 'shoes off at the front door' thing and yet I feel it often looks somewhat grubby. Can't explain it other than to say it is not the high quality Axminster of 40 years it replaced. Didn't think I'd last another 40 years so compromised! Do I regret the purchase? No. It was a dream I was able to realise. However......we all know the difference between dreams and reality..........! Am I unhappy about the outcome? No. Just sometimes irritated. Irrational woman indeed!

I have just read through the thread and see you have made your decision! Good for you. I am still trying to decide on a carpet 18 months on from my initial decision to replace our sitting room one!

We have a pale apricot heavy-duty wool which has been down for many many MANY years and I seem to have spent many many years on hands and knees spot cleaning (mostly where Mr C spills tea and coffee as he carries it into the room, grrrr).

I bought a good quality VAX carpet cleaner and do the 'track' of dirt from door to the sofa we mostly use, quite regularly. These methods have actually kept the carpet looking remarkably good considering its age.

As we are aging, I thought I would buy a 'no-stain' carpet, as I read somewhere that these are no longer shiny 'Bri-nylon' or whatever they were originally made of. I can't find any reviews of such a product. If anyone has knowledge of a really good-looking bomb/age-proof carpet, please please post here!
Thanks and I hope your new carpet looks great, OP.

I remember my first ever cookbook as a young wife. It was Katherine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter. She said that whether you drank red or white wine with a meal was nothing to do with whether you were eating meat or fish. If your bedsit had Lino you could serve red wine but if you had a carpet, you had to stick to white.
We knew how to live in those days!

It sounds like ours too. Obviously I didn't describe it too well. I'm sure you will love it!

It sounds just like mine Crafting and I like it very much.

Just don't buy any red wine.

Many thanks for all your comments. We can't have wood or laminate floors as we live in an apartment and the floors need to be carpeted to keep the noise down. We went back today to have another look and have made a decision. A compromise of sorts. We are going for a creamy colour (more clotted cream than light cream) twist carpet with flecks or light orange, brown and dark orange. Not too much pattern but hopefully enough to distract the eye from any marks.

Salesman asked if we were particularly clumsy as we had asked so many questions about cleaning. What, he asked, were we planning to throw on it. Grandchildren we replied and then wine when they'd gone and we were recovering!

You can now get some light coloured but slightly patterned carpets in some places which are good and, although I never went for one, the carpet shop we used did have some modern very nice patterned Axminster style carpets

If you don't want your carpet to show marks get a traditionally patterned Axminster.
No! Not my scene either. Particularly not in modern houses.

I have a beige? cream coloured carpet. It does show dirt relatively easily.
In my hall and dining room I have a terracotta carpet. It is very forgiving as regards stains. I like an easy life and a bit of colour in my home furnishings.

We have light carpets throughout that are quite easy to treat for small marks. they have been down for six years and apart from some wear on the hall are like new. I used to have a chocolate brown carpet in the living room in another house and it was very dark in that room.

I have got cream carpets in most rooms of the house Crafting including the stairs although I have hard floors in my dining room (with a huge cream rug), bathroom, toilet and kitchen.

I have never regretted my choice of light carpet as it always looks bright and will go with almost any colour scheme. I don't have pets but I do have 3 scruffy grandchildren who are hardly ever away and boy do the carpets get some punishment!

I can't be @rsed worrying about keeping carpets clean anymore it's wooden flooring with a nice rug every time for me. I do agree though a heathery mixture will disguise a multitude of sins.

In our last house we had a blue carpet in the lounge and h/s/l. It was wool and had a small pattern on. It was down for over 15 years and saw off everything, children, spaniels, cats, coffee etc. Really loved that carpet till I realised it was in nearly pub in the district! (No, we didn't buy it off the back of a lorry!)

My parents used to have a brown carpet and it showed all the light coloured 'bits' so Mum was forever vacuuming. Beige with flecks seems ideal. Mine is pale green with marks from cat sick, chewed rodents etc., so wouldn't recommend!
I made a good choice with my kitchen tiles - beige with mud-coloured marbling. I can never tell whether it is dirty!

In one house we had a red carpet in the hall and stairs. It was a man made carpet guaranteed not to stain - I was very dubious about it as all other carpets were the 80/20 mix and we had a lot of stair and landing areas - 50sqM - however it did as they say - do what it said on the tin! Most marvellous carpet, never stained, anything wiped off and it remained new looking when vacuumed - did not go flat (twist pile) and felt the same as the wool mix. I only agreed to go with it because it was the shade of red I had been everywhere looking for.
We had pale mushroomy cream in the sitting room of last house which was not too bad at staying clean looking but it did eventually show 'track marks'. More difficult to keep a carpet clean if you step onto it from tiles or wood rather than another carpet I have found.

In our old house, apart from parquet, we had a silver grey sitting room carpet it was 80% wool and quite dense. It stood the test of time well. The one mark was when someone trod bird poo in! I made the mistake of using vanish and it was the vanish that left the forever mark on the carpet.

The hall and stair carpet was a mid heather/ dark raspberry colour, it was there for 27 years and still perfect when we left. A very forgiving colour.

The new house has cream/ beige carpets, and on the stairs, so far so good.

My rule is not to have a "cold" or dark colour in a country that is cold and dark a lot of the time . I have honey-coloured carpeting that I love and there are such efficient instant spot cleaners in the supermarkets now, so far, so good (10 years on).