Carpet

Choosing carpet as the flooring for your home offers some unique advantages over other materials. The selection of styles is practically endless. New technology makes carpet easier than ever to care for. And when it comes to comfort, carpet just feels better than stone, tile or hardwood.

When it comes to choosing colors and tones for a carpet floor, you've got one whopper of a menu. The choices have never been greater, and narrowing the selection can seem downright daunting. The right carpet can give the room a sense of warmth and comfort or a more formal and elegant feel. There are two basic outlooks to color selection. The "feature" approach treats the color choice as a major influence on the interior décor. The “background” approach incorporates the color choice into the rest of the room's decorative choices, complementing the overall style of the room.

The vast array of patterns offers further stylistic options. Large areas of pattern can appear to "draw together" a room, but solid-color carpets can seem to stretch the size of the space. When choosing a pattern, interior decorators take their cues from other elements in the room. Detailed, classical patterns often complement dark, polished wood furniture, while brighter colors and simpler patterns make a good match for more contemporary décor. Also, be sure to take the room's size into consideration. Most professionals recommend at least eight to 10 repeats of the motif to give the pattern its decorative rhythm. Keep in mind that large items of furniture will hide a lot of the design.