<p>We have some beautiful wool runner carpets and area rugs on the wood floor parts of our house. At the time we had a friend who was had a furniture and area rug business. Even with a discount they were still expensive.But 13 yrs later they are still beautiful.
At this point wool carpet is out of the price range unless the dealer we are working with gets a remnant that is large enough for our footage.
The carpet dealer my H works with has a regular showroom of carpet that is priced at normal prices. He has wool carpet. What we are looking at is his remnant inventory. He weekly gets lists from his suppliers that have end of rolls for sale.He buys what he thinks he can sell and can order anything on the weekly list if it is still available. He sells them all at the same price, around 20+ installed with good padding. So whether the carpet retailed for $60 + installed or 30+ installed it is all the same price. If he doesn’t have something you like now you can keep looking each week.</p>
<p>To folks considering wool carpets - if you never had wool carpets or area rugs before, make sure no one in your house is allergic to wool before installing wool carpets! I agree, wool rugs are the easies to clean, most stain repellent rugs (at least in my experience, cat barf did not stick to them - sorry for TMI)</p>
<p>I grew up with wall to wall carpets and have always especially liked them for bedrooms, but a few years ago when D’s allergist recommended that she have no carpet in her room, I decided to take it up myself. Now this was a floor that had been thoroughly vacuumed once a week without fail, but the dust and crud that had nonetheless accumulated between the carpet and the padding, as well as under the padding, was just appalling. It gave me a whole different outlook on carpeting.</p>
<p>Another thought if you are dealing with remnants, I have seen carpet installations where an outer band of a different color (along the walls of the room) is combined with a complementary center. If done right, it can be attractive and would require less square footage of the same carpet. </p>
<p>Another great reason to use wool is that it doesn’t crush easily, so you can move furniture around without worrying about those ugly compressed areas.</p>
<p>I agree completely, mommaJ, but I do like carpet on stairways for safety reasons. I fell down my wooden back stairway years ago, and later I decided to install carpeting to make it less slippery. Luckily, I only ended up with a badly bruised butt, but it could have been much worse.</p>
<p>We pulled up the carpet in our bedroom and just stained the foundation. I love it, and yes, the dirt underneath the carpet was disgusting. We all have allergies, and I think it’s helped a lot.</p>
<p>Our home had Karastan carpeting when we moved in --mostly pale blue. 12 years later, it still looks great, even in the hallway to the bedrooms. That carpeting is everything proof–kids, Girl Scout troops, puppy, huge family dinners (40+), craft projects, etc. I do have it cleaned from time to time, but it wears really well.</p>
<p>Would it look goofy to have wood floors in the bedrooms and have the hallway and stairs carpeted? I, too am confused as what to do. And I don’t know if we will be living here in five years- we may downsize.</p>
<p>Onward I think it depends on the layout of the house.In my house it would look goofy. The master is at one end of the house next to the living room. The LR and hall area are wood. You go through a set of double doors and have a small hallway and small flight of stairs. It would be wood, carpet for a tiny area and wood again.</p>
<p>Our bedrooms are all upstairs. I think because we will probably move within 5 years (although I love this place but it is too big for 2 of us), we will probably take the easy way out and put down carpeting. I hope to get out soon and look at Smartstrand carpeting (Dupont) and see if I like it. The stairs are the hard part. Btw, we have berber in the hall and on the stairs and it has worn well but I hate dealing with it and dog hair. The dog hair gets trapped in it and is hard to vacuum it out. No more berber for me.</p>