Picking your home carpeting is normally one of the largest decisions you make when doing a remodeling job. Many folks will pick one single color and style of carpet to be installed throughout the home. Others will consider each room individually and maybe even select a different color and type of carpet for the room.
Today, there is such a wide range in types of carpet, colour of carpets and even cost of carpets. In the past, when carpet was first becoming popular in homes the sole fabric available was wool. Today there are many different fabrics that are generally accessible.
When home carpeting first went to synthetic fiber, it was very easy to see that the fabric was manmade as the carpet had a glaze to it that many families failed to like. With the improvement of man-made fabrics, it is virtually impossible to tell if carpets are made from a synthetic or natural fabric.
Today about 96% of American houses have wall to wall carpets in the living and family rooms, hallways and bedrooms. Formal dining rooms have real or laminate wooden flooring and kitchens and lavatories usually have rolled linoleum floors. With this much carpeting being used, it is no wonder that there has been so much improvement in synthetic fibers employed in making carpeting.
Some of the enhancements in carpeting over the last 50 years include dumping the unwished-for sheen, developing anti-static fibers to lose the majority of the static electric build up that carpets are quite well known for, and chemicals such as Scotchguard that can be added to the carpets. In reality there have been some fibers that have built-in molecular barriers that resist soil and stains (DuPont’s Stainmaster was first to present this process). This allowed spills to stay on the surface a little bit longer, while minimizing the likelihood of staining.
There has been so much improvement in the feel and types of carpet over time that it’s occasionally quite a job to pick out just the right carpet for your home. There’s a movement to improve home flooring by choosing a particular carpet type and colour for each room.