If you worry about stains in your carpeting, choose a product that is stain resistant. For durability, the best type of carpet to pick is nylon. If you want a carpet that generates less electricity, choose acrylic or olefin. For fade resistance solution dyed carpets are the best choice to resisting the sun. If you have someone at home with impaired movement, try using low-pile carpets. Whatever style you decide on, match the performance of the carpet with the space requisites.

Now that you have your carpet, you must take care of it if you want it to last. Carpets easily accumulate dirt. Hence, there is a need for frequent vacuuming. Use a vacuum that has stable beater bars and with good suction. To effectively remove dirt from the carpet you are vacuuming, make sure to replace vacuum bags and filters regularly.

If you have a carpet of lighter shade, you may need to clean it more often. If there is a stain in your carpet, clean it immediately. You can use a spoon or a dull knife to gently scrape off food spills. If the spill is liquid, dab it with white cloth towels or white paper. They absorb the spill quickly. Remember not to scrub or scrape, just dab the liquid spill. If you do scrub it, it would have a fuzzy effect on your carpeting. There is also a technique in blotting or dabbing. When you try blotting the moisture, start from the outer edge toward the center to avoid spreading the spill. Later, you may wash the stain using water and the appropriate cleaning items. Again, use white towels over the wet spots to absorb the remaining wetness. You can use a heavy object to weigh down the white towels and make it absorb the moisture faster.

To summarize, what you need to clean spills are the following: white paper towels or white cloths and a detergent solution that is a mixture of a mild liquid soap and water. You may add a non-bleach dish-washing detergent. You will also need a vinegar solution, with one part white vinegar to one part water and an ammonia solution, which is composed of one tablespoon ammonia to one cup of water. Please do not use this solution on wool or wool-blend carpets. You will also need a non-oily nail polish remover, chewing gum remover and spot remover. Now, you should be ready to stop any accidental spills from completely destroying your carpet.

Not only are there many carpet benefits there are also many choices. Carpet is the most practical, fashionable, and versatile flooring on the market today. Carpet accounts for more than half of all flooring purchases that are made each and every year. The fact is, carpet has outsold every other type of flooring for more than 60 years.

Carpet offers you several advantages that other flooring options can’t compete with. Below, you will find many of the features that carpet will add to your home.

Warmth
For warmth, carpet is the best choice you can make. A carpet under foot brings warmth to any room from your bedroom to family room or living room.

Insulation
A benefit so often overlooked is that of insulation. Wall to wall carpet over carpet pad increases the insulation of a floor significantly over any other floor covering.

Safety
Unlike tile and other smooth surfaces carpet offers a slip resistant surface that will prevent accidents along with a natural cushion in the event of someone falling. Safety is a very important concern especially for the elderly and young children.

Sound Reduction
Do you have a house full of kids or live above another residence? Carpet will reduce noise better than any other type of flooring. Carpet works to dampen noise in three ways:
1. Reduces surface noise from foot traffic
2. Absorbs airborne sound
3. Blocks transmission of sound
These qualities are valuable in apartments as well as semi-detached homes.

Hiding Surface Irregularities
Adding carpet to a room can also disguise many existing damage to the floor. While it may not hide a warped floor that looks like a roller coaster it will cover many damaged with ease that would need to be filled or replaced for many other types of flooring.

Ease of Care
Stain resistance is a real plus with most carpets that are manufactured today. Short of deliberate abuse or neglect spills and stains are much easier to cleanup than in the past.

Clean Air
A properly maintained and cleaned carpet improves air quality by acting as a filter and trapping allergy causing dust and allergens.

Variety of Use
Carpets aren’t only for floors anymore, which is a really great thing. You can easily add carpet to steps, stairs, walls, posts, and other non level surfaces, even a ceiling without having to worry about it slipping, lifting, or buckling.

Comfort
There is not another floor covering that is more comfortable than carpet to lay down on.

Flexibility
Carpet is the primary foundation in almost any room. Because it is available in a variety of different colors and textures, it helps to create an unlimited number of possibilities for decorating. From the neutral tones to rich solids, carpet is the first step you can take to make your home look better than ever.

Low cost
Carpet doesn’t cost a lot of money, as it offers an economical alternative to the other types of expensive flooring. Even with professional installation, you won’t pay nearly as much as you would for hard surfaces.

Life span
The carpets of today are very durable and can outlast most other types of flooring available on the market. All you have to do is select a type of carpet that has a life span of 5 – 30 years or more, which is very common now days.

Warranty
With most manufacturers, you can get great warranties with your carpet purchase. This way, you’ll be protected when you install your new carpet. Once installed, all you have to do is enjoy it – as the warranty will ensure that you are very well protected.

Carpet is available in several different textures, constructions, colors, and designs – which will open the doors to virtually any interior design that you
can imagine.  The combination of texture and color will complement the look of both formal and casual environments, while helping to bring continuity to the overall room designs.

The most important thing to consider when you shop for carpet is the amount of traffic that will be on the carpet that is going to be installed as well as the area you hope to use it in.  The construction and the texture are both key aspects when you select a carpet for a specified area and use.

Nylon, polyester, and olefin are the most widely used fibers with carpet manufacturing, with each one displaying qualities that make themselves great with specific applications and uses. Even though nylon is more  expensive than some of the other synthetic fibers, it is also the softest and most resilient, which makes it great for any room in your home, including those with greater traffic.

Polyester fabric is less resilient than nylon, although it more cost efficient and offers a high level of resistance to stains, which makes it a great choice for areas such as bedrooms or dining rooms that are not subjet to a lot of traffic.

The fiber olefin is solution dyed, which results in a highly resistant stain carpet that can be cleaned easily using a water and beach solution -
without any loss to the color.

Unlike the other types of fibers, olefin is fade, mildew, and mold resistant, which results in a carpet that performs well indoors and outdoors. Keep in mind however, that olefin isn’t very resilient and as a result, it should only be considered with berber construction.

You can get carpets in either plush or berber construction.  The berber type of carpets are well constructed with a continuous level loop, while plush carpets are constructed of loops that have been sheared, which results in the strands standing upright.

Berber construction carpets don’t crush or mat due to their high level loops.  They are however harder underfoot, uncomfortable to sit on or lay
down on, and they can easily become damaged by pets with long nails.  Berber carpets are well suited for high traffic areas, which include walk
ways, living rooms, and entrance areas.  They aren’t popular with bedrooms, as their hard texture makes them a less than attractive option.

The plush type carpets are much softer to walk or lay on and they offer better sound and thermal insulation.  They tend to crush and mat though
when they are subjected to high levels of foot traffic.

The use of nylon fiber paired with a tight low pile construction will help to limit the amount of pile matting and crushing, due to the high resilient nature of the nylon fiber and the added support that is gained from tight construction.

The warranties for carpet ranges from 5 – 30 years, with the general rule being that you don’t cover the stairs.  Most carpet warranties will require
the installation of new carpet padding as well at the time of installation in order for the warranty to become valid.

Carpet a room using carpet samples. This creative method of carpeting a room works out great for a casual family room or kids bedroom. One of the real benefits besides costs is that when an area looks worn it is easily replaced without replacing the carpet in the entire room.

Discontinued carpet samples can be purchased at retail carpet dealers for as little as .50 cents each for smaller samples and a bit more for the larger sizes.  The size of both the sample and the room you are carpeting will dictate how many samples you’ll need.  If samples are not available you can also purchase small remnants of carpet. You’ll also need to purchase staples or floor adhesive to attach the samples to the floor.

If you are doing a children’s playroom, using multi-colored carpet is perfect.  It is very colorful and if a spill stains one of the squares of carpet,
you can quickly and easily pull it back up and install a new square.  This is a great advantage to doing a playroom this way.

The only things you’ll actually need when you install carpet samples or squares in a room is a carpet knife and a staple gun.  The 5/8″ staples seem to work the best for squares and samples.

All you need to do is put the carpet piece in place and staple in two or three staples along each side.  Make sure you wiggle the head of the stapler down deep between the fibers, or between the border and the fibers, so you can hide the staples as much as possible.

If you are carpeting a concrete floor, you can use either all purpose adhesive or double sided carpet tape instead of staples.  With either case, this is best to do when padding isn’t that important.  You can use padding as well if you don’t mind the complications, although without it, its pure simplicity.

You may also choose to lay out your pieces of carpet first, then decide where each individual piece will go.  When you reach walls, heating sources, or other obstacles, you can quickly and easily cut the pieces to fit. If you happen to make a mistake, it will cost you almost nothing, instead of costing
you a fortune.  When you make a mistake, all you have to do is start over with a different sample.

Before you begin to put the carpet down, you should always measure the size of the room first so that you can determine how many samples you need to purchase. If one store does not have enough samples you can usually find more samples at another store. To save drive time you might want to call around and find out what stores have ahead of time.

Although the samples will range in size the average is about 18 X 18 inches.  Using  pieces that are the same size is perhaps the easiest way to do it. Using multiple sizes is more work but if you have an artistic flare you will find it worth your time cutting and fitting multiple sizes of carpet samples.

Keep in mind that using samples or remnants is a very unusual style and if you are preparing a house for sale this is probably not the best choice for most rooms.

Braided rugs are typically created from cotton, wool or silk, although since any type of material can be braided there is no reason it cannot be made into a rug. A braided rug is exactly as the name implies; the material used to make the rug is braided together until the desired shape and size has been achieved. For many years, the braided rug was made by hand from braids that were sewn together. There are many artisans around the world, that still make braided rugs by hand, creating gorgeous pieces that are typically used to accent special places in the home.

Braided rugs have many advantages for use in the home. They can theoretically be fashioned from virtually any material that can be braided. From cotton, to wool, to fine silk, the material is varied yet the rug itself can be used for many purposes. Heavy duty braided rugs can be used in high traffic areas such as the kitchen or bathroom. Delicate braided rugs from exotic materials can be used as accent pieces or can be used as decorative wall hangings. The color combination’s are as varied as the dye in the material and the size can be as large as your budget allows. Braided rug creation is very flexible.

One disadvantage of a braided rug is the maintenance involved with its upkeep. The braids of these types of rugs are sewn together, sometimes from delicate materials such as silk, which can easily fray and come apart during cleaning. Care has to be taken when the braided rug needs to be cleaned. Another disadvantage is that these types of rugs are not necessarily the warmest rug. Some are best used for accent rugs and not for use to help trap heat and keep rooms warm when the weather is cold.

Braided rugs can be found in department and specialty stores. They can be as cheap or expensive as you want to pay. It only depends on the quality of craftsmanship, the size and the material it is made from. An online search can also help you locate those who will create a braided rug by hand.

One way to learn to appreciate oriental rugs to their fullest is to study the designs and use them to build your own oriental-style rug. Many of the design elements have significance, and it is known that in some regions it is believed that no rug can be perfect as “Only God is perfect”. We can have our own values and ideas, but the thought behind this is profound. Although we always strive for perfection, we know that all too easily mistakes may be made. Once we know this, we will not fault others for their mistakes and recognize that in our best works there will still be imperfections.

In oriental rugs the color shading may be variable as die lots change. So rather than planning a rug with all colors in ample supply, one may choose to vary the die lots and get that extra richness that comes from slight differences in shading, which adds to the luminosity and color interest.

Start by taking some graph paper and copying smaller and larger designs from a rug. It is best to start by building the border as it allows one to take several small designs and study the variations of each design and how they are fitted together in a pattern.

Oriental rugs may have several borders, some narrow and others broader. The designs within these borders are sometimes similar, but often a new element is introduced in each border.

Oriental rugs often use medallions grouped in a pattern against a different background, sometimes contrasting in color, at other times in a complementary color.

If you are interested in this craft, try to determine what kind of oriental rugs you find most appealing and research the country of origin, the design elements and the color combinations.

The wool used in the original carpets often consisted of camel hair, but excellent results may be obtained by using sheep’s wool. Wool from New Zealand and Australia is often used for this purpose. They are being manufactured in beautiful rich colors.

This type of rug can be woven, but can also be made using special canvass that determines the number of knots per inch. The finer the wool is, the finer the canvas should be, resulting in greater the number of knots per inch and usually a shorter pile. When making a rug on canvas, one makes rows of loops of equal length. When the rug is finished, all the loops are cut and a beautiful rich pile reveals itself. This makes a great difference in the color as the pile reflects light differently. There is some skill involved in creating loops of equal length, but this is fairly quickly learned. One would start by measuring each loops, but eventually the eye is sufficient, and one can just check from time to time to ensure the length is still uniform.

It would be advisable to undertake a small rug as a first project, or to start with a fairly coarse pattern on a coarse canvas. However, the real beauty of an oriental rug is in the fineness of its design and the closeness of the knots.

So we read the manufacturer’s warranty and notice that it says to vacuum often. Daily might be the frequency in the high traffic areas. But who has time any more to spend maintaining carpets on a daily basis? The only time you see people vacuum that frequently is in the hotel and motel industry.

Rarely does one actually see the carpets being replaced at the hotel and motel industry unless there is a major remodeling project happening with new color schemes to match. So it would serve one well to learn from the hospitality business.

How do we usually buy carpet? In most cases it comes with the home already installed. It will either be a newly built or a previously owned re-sale home. If a new home was built, if you are in the beginning stages of construction, you have a choice to upgrade to the better carpet and padding offered. Or you can choose the cheapest carpet known to mankind commonly referred to as ‘builder’s grade’ materials which also includes the cheapest, thinnest carpet pad also known as ‘FHA grade’ 2 lb. rebond.

Sure the carpet is fuzzy and comes in a light color and the padding might as well be called foam because it easily crushes to the sub-floor when any weight is applied on the carpet’s surface. After all, carpet is just carpet and pad is just pad, right? WRONG. Once again the old adage “You get what you pay for” still rings true.

DuPont, one of the top four major fiber producers, conducted a study years ago about the behaviors of the consumer as related to the way they make a purchase decision when it comes to picking carpet. I suppose human behavior still has not evolved that much since. Please note that the following results are not a misprint.

They rank from number one to number five in order:

1. Color
2. Color
3. Color
4. Texture
5. Price

While not disclosed, the first three might have been trying to color match the hard surface flooring like tile, hardwood flooring or stone. The second might be for the paint in a given room and the last color match to compliment the home’s other furnishings such as window treatments, and furniture.

Texture refers to the ‘feel’ also known as the hand of the carpet referring to how it feels when you touch the carpet by hand. It would also take into account the weight of carpet measured in ounces. For example, a carpet weighing 32 oz. per square inch has more carpet fibers then say a 16 ounce carpet. A good way to test this principle is to go to carpet a retailer and ask to see two different swatches.

For example with all things being equal, such as the same Carpet Fiber Producer manufactured by DuPont, same carpet fibers milled at Shaw Industries, same color dye lot, etcetera, you can perform this simple comparison test side by side.

Simply form your fingers like a claw and push directly straight down from top to the bottom of the fibers using your fingertips only. You should notice an immediate difference in carpet density. It will also reflect in the price per square yard. The difference is the number of stitches per square inch. On a much more dense carpet, it will be difficult to see down to the primary backing where the carpet is stitched in.

Here’s the benefit:
If there are more carpet pile fibers, then each carpet fiber actually supports one another side by side on all four corners of the fiber forming a nap. The less pile there is opens up the potential damage for gritty soil to ‘cut’ the fibers at the base of the pile where the primary backing is. This cutting effect comes with every step, pivot and turn on the carpet nap’s surface. This also causes thinning, pitting and marring of fibers making carpets dull in appearance even after restorative cleaning.

It is also worth mentioning that 60 percent of the soil that falls into the carpet can be removed safely and effectively with routine dry vacuuming of high traffic areas such as halls, stairs, entry ways and traffic paths in front of furniture. This single process alone can greatly extend the performance and life use of the carpet. Remember the hospitality industry housekeepers?

The second most fatal mistake a carpet purchaser can make is ignoring the quality of the carpet pad. Padding for the subfloor is like the spine of the carpet. It provides support to aid in preventing indentations left by heavy furniture legs after re-arranging a room.

It also has the job of holding water like a sponge whenever a copious amount water floods the room such as a broken water pipe. It provides the comfort under our footing so our feet and backs don’t ache. This is the one place you don’t have to worry about the color matching as the carpet will cover all the pad.

Pad is also measured in ounces and pounds. Once again, the higher the number, the more dense the pad. The density can range in feeling. By using a pinch test between the top and bottom of the pad you can compare densities. There is foam all the way up to feeling like a large pencil eraser. The higher the better.

Try to stay away from rubber based products like a waffle print as they have been known to dry rot where hot water pipes run through the concrete subflooring. They also don’t provide any absorption for collecting water spills. In fact in a typical flood scenario, the water just continues to migrate further by saturating a greater area of carpet space.

It would also be wise to choose the right carpet for the right application. If you were born during Baby Boomer era, you would have ran into carpets that were made from polyester. Those fibers were dyed first before they were extruded as fiber. They never faded from the sun or bleach spills and lasted forever but were harder to clean.

Nylon came around and was softer to the hand and cleaned up better but spills could permanently stain the fibers and due to costs, generally come in lighter colors. Almost all darker colors will be more expensive to produce due to more dye in the process. More dyes prevented stains due to the lack of dye sites available.

Fourth Generation carpets removed the nuisance of static electricity when walking across a room and touching anything conductive to release a jolting shock.

Fifth Generation carpets involved the incorporation of stain resist carpets. The key to this technology was to create a transparent dye. Normally after dyeing half of the carpet’s dye sites in a light color the remaining dye sites would be open for stains once installed. The solution was solved by re-dyeing the remaining dye sites with a transparent dye. Dye sites are like skin pores on your arm.

Benefit:
If all dye sites on a fiber are filled, then no stains could penetrate immediately. This would give the end user time to remove the stain later even if it dried on in many cases.

The last point to consider is the primary backing of carpets. For a number of years, India exported to the United States jute which is what ropes are made of. An unfortunate deadly industrial accident involving chemicals at Union Carbide’s battery plant, cause strained relations between both countries and jute stopped being exported.

Jute backed carpets also occurred when they became wet from flooding. The natural fiber made of plant (organically)based material released a tannin dye similar to coffee and bled into the carpet’s surface; thereby causing it to permanently discolor the carpet and ruin it.

It was also a food source for mold and mildew and if not treated quickly, it would dry rot causing the primary and secondary backing to delaminate and destroy the carpet.

Since the mid 1980′s polypropylene backing has become the norm. It’s a tough as fishing line and can hold up to most abuse end users give it. It’s also cheaper to produce. In fact, 70 percent of all carpets involved in a clear water food damage loss can be dried, cleaned and re-engaged with no evidence of a pre-loss condition.

Good luck on your next carpet purchase as you now possess more knowledge than most of the carpet cleaners and retailers in the industry. And don’t forget to vacuum!