apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i have wall to wall carpet, only bc i can't afford an upgrade right now. but it is on the short list of things to start saving for. its gross... even if it's clean, it's gross... holding onto anything and everything you spill or even just in the air. i hate to think about it. ugh nasty.

oh but fyi, if you are more on top of gettin rid of old carpets than i am: http://www.carpetrecovery.org/

I didn't realize that wall-to-wall carpet was now considered "Trendy" - merely the default option in so many rental apartments and tract homes/McMansions.

(So what's the next "trend" - Popcorn ceilings? Beige plastic switchplate covers? Faux-Butcherblock laminate countertops?)

Now if the question were patterned Wall-to-Wall - I'd be all over that.

I hate wall to wall. It's always dirty, dusty and blah.. I think the wall to wall trend you're seeing in Domino is inspired by hotels. Luxury hotels have interesting, nice wall to wall like in those photos but I still don't want it in my home.

I have allergies, wall to wall carpet is not in the cards for me.

I've never liked wall to wall carpeting, even as a little kid. I remember being the only kid in the neighborhood with wall to wall carpeting in our living room and I always begged my dad to take it out! He never did.

It's annoying to clean and stains happen so easily....

Let's see....Two kids, an old dog, and a husband who likes to each take-out in the living room....

Nope. No wall-to-wall for my house.

i've just recently won the argument of should we take out the carpet or not. the compromise was to keep it in the bedrooms. i think i'd be ok with a tight weave carpet like sisal but not the normal stuff. wood floors just seem to make rooms look bigger and they are better maintenance-wise.

Trendy in a way that every apartment under $800 a month in CA has been forever?

Good to know I guess.

I prefer carpet to wood. It's cozier and more comfortable to walk on. I also think it's easier to clean. There's nothing that irritates me more than cleaning wood floors only to see a cat hair tumbleweed blow past an hour later.

I agree with Wishing&Hoping...cat hair tumbleweeds are the worst.

I really love where carpet is going now. Gorgeous patterns, and not that horrible plush shaggy stuff. We're getting new wall to wall soon and we've chosen a really pretty pattern in an oatmeal color, much like the carpet in the pic on the right.

Don't get me wrong, I love wood floors......I just love them more in other people's houses.

wow. i had no idea wall-to-wall was such a major no-no, but i'm basing this on all the slipping shows i watch on tv where agents tout the wall-to-wall carpet as a great selling point. aren't most people in america still living with it?

i moved into an arpartment once and after vacuuming the floor the canister was FULL of gray silt. happened every time i vacuumed for a year. loved it.

wood floors all the way, baby.

I would love to know who pays $70/sf for carpeting.

Why not a bit of both? My home has a mix of WtW carpet and bamboo.

ive got 30 year old carpet in my home and no $ to rip it out for the hardwood floors ive been dreaming of. my husband has terrible allergies and i cant imagine having old ugly carpet makes them any nicer to him. id rather sweep a wood floor daily than have nasty, near impossible to clean carpet for sure.

A little of both is good. Each one as their good and bad points.

i dont see anything wrong with carpets. but i do prefer hard wood floors at least in the living room areas or areas of high traffic. i think it gives more versatility to the space and that raw rustic feel of earthyness that i love.

ewwww, there can't possibly be anyone who thinks the return of wall to wall carpeting is a good idea. it's in my top 5 no no's when looking at a place. actually it's probably my #2 to be honest. nothing freaks me out more than wall to wall carpeting. it's vile :(

I like wall-to-wall in certain places. In bedrooms it has a more homey feel than hardwoods, which feels cold and apartment-like to me. When I bought my home I wanted to put it in my master bedroom, but the wide plank wood floors were too beautiful to cover up. I did put it in the family room though. (A tiny little leopard print - a neutral that hides a world of stains and goes with anything -IMO) I wanted a soft floor for the play area where my daughter could learn to walk and we could all curl up and watch TV in a cozy place.
I'd also rather vacuum carpet than collect dust bunnies from hardwoods day and night.
When house hunting we saw carpeted bathrooms and dining rooms - both of which are disgusting. And kitchens... though I didn't see any of those- Gross.

I don't know if it's some past mini trend, or just a lazy choice on the part of a builder, but my bathroom has wall to wall carpet. It's the most stupid thing ever, especially since the carpet gets damp and is ruining the drywall along the floor next to the tub. The landlord is sending a guy out to patch the drywall--I wish he'd just take out the carpet. It'd be worth the mess, even for an ugly linoleum pattern. And even weirder, it's only the upstairs bathroom. The little half-bath off the living room that has the stackable W/D has linoleum.

I like carpet because: it's cushy on the feet and dampens sound. That is, I'd like it if it were just my own. So in rentals, I look for hardwood because living with others' filth is not on my agenda. I think there's a difference btw good carpet and bad carpet. I also like that it holds the dust in one place until you vacuum--I don't feel as if my hardwoods are ever clean.

Area rugs are fine, but I'll pass on wall to wall carpet for the rest of my life if at all possible. I grew up with it, but I've been in heaven with wood floors every since college. I'm not the most graceful person ever and I just love simply wiping up spilled red wine with a sponge, rather than the crisis that can occur if this happens on carpet. My parents' house is 11 years old and nearly all the carpeting looks terrible. No thanks! I love the gorgeous fir floors in my 80 year old apartment.

I also grew up with wall to wall carpeting, but ever since I've been on my own, I wouldn't dream of carpeting (besides my very first, due to not being able to find anything with wood in my poor tiny price range!) All I can think of, in a rental, is other people's toenail clippings!! Sick, but true. Like michpc, my parents house is completely carpet. My dad pre-books a carpet cleaning appointment for the day after any party, and they entertain a lot. They carpet is nasty the next day. They have even tried to nix coffee/red wine at big parties, but somehow they appear. I'm not even trying to deal with the headache of that kind of maintenance!

i LOVE hardwood floors. i thoroughly enjoy having them throughout my apartment (except for kitchen and bathroom-tile). that being said, sometimes i find it nice to carpet a bedroom with something other than beige apartment carpet. getting out of bed and stepping on a cold wood floor in the winter can be a bit sad, though i guess i am more of an area rug person.

I grew up with wall-to-wall carpet and had it in my first apartment. Today I have bound broadloom in most of the rooms of my wood floored apartment. Why the switch? With the expense of buying the broadloom, I wanted the option of taking my carpet with me when I moved. I also like how the wood floors in my current residence, set off the broadloom.

I think wall-to-wall or broadloom is an excellent floor covering especially when the underlying floor is bad. Wall-to-wall/broadloom also reduces room noise levels and dampens room-to-room noise transmission, it also helps warm a space by insulating the floor. The key to having a great experience with broadloom, or wall-to-wall is choosing high quality nylon or wool carpet and a high quality carpet pad. If you buy polyester, or cheap weave nylon or use cheap carpet pad you will have a cheap looking floor or one that will look great for a year or two then look threadbare.

Despite people's opinions, wood floors will stain just as quickly as broadloom or a rug, and stain permanently. If staining is an issue, make sure you purchase stain resistant carpet and the slovenly should learn to eat and drink with napkins, and tray tables. There are very good stain resistant broadlooms on the market like Stainmaster and Anso VI which will resist staining for the life of the carpet. A thick knap will also help prevent unnoticed spills from staining by causing the liquid or food to bead at the top of the carpet and not soak in. Keep in mind, rugs as well as broadloom should be vaccuumed regularly with a good vaccuum and cleaned annually or biennally, depending on usage. The same must be done with any high quality area rug if you intend for it to last.

Have it. Hate it. It ought to be illegal in rentals. When it's new, it offgasses. It requires heavy machinery to clean. When it's old, it harbors the worst sort of filth. It doesn't last long so then it clogs landfills. If you want a soft landing, get an area rug. You can remove it to clean it, or pay someone else to do it without invading your home.

And I'm with bepsf... how is this suddenly trendy?

i used to think the only reason they put wall to wall in apartments was so they could charge you to replace it when you move out.

I have to have carpet in the bedroom, its pretty hard to keep even wood floors clean between us and the pets and nothing is yuckier than crawling into bed with dirty feet.

now i have wood floors and house slippers.

UGHHHH. that is literally all i can muster out when i even think of wall to wall carpet. honestly, even if i DIDN'T have three huge dogs, i would never ever EVER live with carpet. i don't care how nice it is, or how dirty my bare feet get. i hate the way it looks, feels, and of course, at times - SMELLS. i'm still recovering from hurricane ike, and glad i didn't have nasty sopping wet mildew carpet to rip up.

I like the look of patterned carpet but I think I would rather do a room sized bound-edges piece, or a room of Flor tiles.

I'd worry about having it with pets or, someday, kids, too.

I don't get the aggression towards w2w. I grew up with it in my parents house, all my friends had it in their homes, all of my rentals had it, my bf's condo had it, my sister's condo has it...it has been pretty much the only option out here! I was shocked when I found my current rental with wood floors. Wood floors are the norm in many homes in the city, but a lot of the time they are nasty, dirty, stained, ripped up wooden floors that I wouldn't dare walk on with bare feet, while w2w is the norm for a lot of suburban homes and condos, especially for anything higher than the 1st floor. The carpets in my rentals and my ex's condo always grossed me out because they were never cleaned properly inbetween renters, but as long as it is cared for properly and vacuumed often it requires less upkeep than hardwood and high quality carpet can last a decade. You don't think worn out wood floors look just as bad as old carpet? They both have their pros and cons. I will always have wood floors from this point on just because I personally prefer them, but I"m not violently opposed to well-cared-for w2w...and it's NOT trendy...certain patterns are trendy...but w2s itself has been around for ages.

while i love wood floors, i like the softness and coziness of carpet. the answer? rugs and carpet tiles.
carpet in the bathroom and kitchen- major ewwww

Engineered woods, Laminates and lino/vinyl off-gas too. But w-t-w carpet is just nasty. I've ripped it up for friends and the mold and dust under in and in the padding is just narsty.

Carpet -- never again. Dirty, nasty, ugly, smelly. Bad for someone like me with allergies. I don't even have rugs in my house, just wood floors. IMO, wood never goes out of style.

If I could only afford $18-85 per square foot carpet!!! If I could, I'd just put down hardwood and a nice rug. It'd be cheaper.

when I bought my house, the carpet was horrible, and I had most of it replaced. i toyed with the option of polished concrete, but my parents said it would be too cold. I'd still like to pull up the carpet in the living area and polish the concrete, I'm scared though cause apparently one lot of renters used to fix car parts in the living room, and the concrete is stained! If I do it it will be expensive, so its a one day maybe kind of thing. Plus, while I'd love wood/concrete floors one day, this is my first home so I have to pick "safe" options. As far as carpets go, I think mine is nice, it's charcoal in the living area and a sandy colour in the bedrooms. Sure its not as trendy, but in a house with an arch (ugh!!) and a brown seventies kitchen, its really the least of my problems.

Oh, and I hate fake hardwood floors, it's so obvious!

no no no no

have you ever lifted up a carpet? it's really gross. it's never completely clean.

looks great here.
if you do it tastefully, anything can be amazing. it takes an eye.


http://www.duskin-ny.blogspot.com

For some reason, wall to wall almost always indicates bad taste. We did a poll once in a class and the people who preferred wall to wall were all the cheesy, fake-nailed and hair-sprayed socal girls.

However, Zooey Deschanel did it very well, so I guess it's possible to do it right