<p>Slowly redoing our master bedroom. Next up carpet. The carpet we have is 12 yrs old but never really looked good. It was a swirly pattern with no softness and the color turned a funny greenish tint. Never cleaned up well. I can say that as every time I walk in the room I am reminded of when my D had strep throat and ate an orange popcicle on the floor. Orange popcicle and carpet did not mix. That stain never came out. Plus the brilliant contractor (dear H) put carpet in the bathroom. We are going to tile the bathroom this time.
We also have a short staircase.
What have people liked?</p>
<p>A few years ago, we switched from wall-to-wall carpet to wood flooring in our bedroom. We have a large shag area rug that covers most of it up. That way I can change it when we’re tired of it. </p>
<p>We also put wood flooring on the stairs - but I have to dust it everyday!</p>
<p>If I were to redo my master bedroom, I’d put hardwoods and rugs. We have tiles in the bathroom, and I wish we thought about putting an in-floor electrical heating under our tiles. My friend has it and absolutely loves it! She has a programmable thermostat that turns it on in the morning and off at night.</p>
<p>We already have wood in the living room and hall that run up to the master area of the house. I think it would be difficult to match.
I am thinking about looking into that in floor heat but I have heard from several people that they have a friend who has it and has had problems. No first hand info.
Also as far as cold tile remember I live in Coastal Ca. While I may find the tile cold most people on CC would laugh.</p>
<p>I’m another happy person with oak floors and area rugs. In our old house I liked the carpet we put in the guest room which was a level loop with small pattern. It wasn’t soft though - just easy to clean. I hated the very soft plush in the master bedroom, but that was mostly because it seemed slightly too big for the room and for years the doors were hard to open. (Eventually we got around to trimming them.)</p>
<p>I like hardwood and area rugs too. However, if I were to go with wall to wall, I like berber carpets, although we never had one. We had some great wall to wall that was textured, but a solid color, and the stairs were done beautifully. The installation was done by really good installers, which I think helped. It is nice to see a pattern in the texture. My problem with installed carpet is that I generally like light colors which soil easily. Darker colors will last longer, but make rooms look smaller.</p>
<p>I know a decorator who says to blend your woods (don’t have to match), but depending on the style of your house (is it very open in floor plan), this could be a no no. In my home prior to the current one I had carpet on the stairs and hall, but had bare wood in some bedrooms (with rugs.)</p>
<p>anothermom2- it is somewhat of an open plan. Also so much of the rest of the house is in the same wood I think it would look funny if the master and stairs had a different wood.
Through my H’s job he has worked with someone who gets remnants of carpet. We need a fairly large amount so it limits what he has. We looked at one that retails at over $60 that we can get for the low $20’s a yard. It is a pattern of small squares. Very soft and thick. The problem is it is a light color. Our problem going with a dark color is we have a ton of afternoon sun and a dark color would be subject to fading. The bedroom is at the far end of the house and the only room off of those steps is the master. Also it is not near any of the entry doors to the house.So at this phase of our lives the kids rarely venture to our end of the house.
We would also redo my H’s office which is the room the boys also play X Box in. That room gets little sun and is not huge and the carpet guy has a nice dark sage green or a charcoal color of the same patterned carpet.
Don’t know if I am nuts to be considering a light creamy beige carpet.</p>
<p>mom60 - I have a friend who had light wood in the hallway and then put a really dark wood in the bedroom. They transitioned by having a patterned wood of both colors put in the threshold area. Looks great. </p>
<p>But…for me, I like soft, low and dense carpet under my feet in the morning.</p>
<p>Also does StainMaster make a difference?</p>
<p>Wool berber treated with stain releasers–that was my favorite bedroom carpet in many houses. It absorbed noise, felt soft and warm underfoot, still looked good after 6 years (which is when we moved). New house has hardwood floors and they’re cold and noisy. I’m contemplating getting a square of carpet bound so that I can step down onto something less shocking.</p>
<p>Just noticed the stainmaster question. Yes. It does make a difference.</p>
<p>I do not know about StainMaster, but SpotShot makes a HUGE difference! Make sure your carpet matches the fur color of your pets, if you have any. 
I have light gray carpets (hubby fell for the color romantically named “frozen pond”) and my light-colored cats used to shed like crazy, but their shedded fur was not visible on the carpet. Unfortunately, one of my old kitties developed a major hairball problem… So SpotShot was the only thing that could remove the presents she used to leave for us - without a trace! The carpet is now more than 10 years old, and I think it will last another 10 unless my new kitties find a way to completely trash it.</p>
<p>Funny about the pet. In the 30 yrs I have known my H we have never had a pet sleep in our room. In the 12 yrs we have had a pool he has not let our dogs swim in the pool. Just over a year ago we got a new puppy. My kids can’t believe it but my H lets this dog swim in the pool and on occasion sleep in our bedroom. The problem is he is a black lab. I am not getting black carpet. He does sleep on one of those huge Costco flat pet throws. I told my H when we get new carpet his darling doggie is going to be sleeping in the laundry room.</p>
<p>I have been reading up on carpeting over at gardenweb in the flooring forum and right now I am leaning towards a type of carpet called Smartstrand. It is suppose to be very stain resistant.</p>
<p>We love WOOD; I would suspect you can probably find a wood that would complement or match just about anything that you already have if you look about. There are many great laminates and other products. Bamboo is very popular. Cork is also making a comeback and might be nice underfoot (tho I don’t know anyone that has it). We love sheet vinyl for bathroom and kitchen. Our home is all wood & we have not had to do much to it for the entire time we’ve had it (now coming up to two decades).</p>
<p>H wants carpet. I am just trying to react quickly why he is in the spending mood.</p>
<p>^^^^^ Great idea!</p>
<p>I just redid old tile and LR carpet with wood, and I love it!!! My bedroom has soft beige carpeting, Son’s has Karastan blue berber, and office has beige berber. If I redid the bedrooms, I’d use wood with carpets. If I got remnants, I’d have them edged. They would be easy to replace. My friend just redid her bedroom with creamy white with blue squares–very pretty, but I’d worry about her 3 dogs. I hope she got extra carpet to patch places that will inevitably got soiled.</p>
<p>We have beige carpet in our Master Bedroom and at 16 years old it is still kicking. Every once in a while I shampoo it - borrow friend’s carpet thingee - and it brightens right up.</p>
<p>We do try to take shoes off when coming in the house and that probably helps.</p>
<p>Finicky ppl would probably wanted to change the carpet a few years ago, but we are not finicky. </p>
<p>We do have beige on the stairs and that looks pretty bad - gets far more use and that shows as dirty dinginess. It does clean up with the carpet shampoo unit but I don’t do it frequently enough to really make it look clean.</p>
<p>Hope that info helps. </p>
<p>Oh - and we have berber in the family room but I don’t love it; it seems to unwind in spots and the seams never really blended. But that might be due to the quality of the installation.</p>
<p>Hugcheck- what type of carpet do you have on the stairs? I don’t want something that is going to get matted down in the path that we walk.
The carpet we have now you can totally see the paths that we walk.</p>
<p>I have wood floors throughout my house, however, I do have carpeted runners on three stairways. All are 100% wool, hand loomed in England - at the time they were installed, my designer said that they were the best you could buy. My husband had a fit at the price, but after 12 years and three kids, they look perfect. I’ve never had them cleaned, other than spot cleaning. I think the difference is the 100% wool - it naturally repels stains and dirt. When I spot clean, water seems to wick away from the carpet and everything comes out easily onto the white cloth. They haven’t crushed or shown any wear at all. They were well worth the expense.</p>