Magic Carpet Ride

Well hello there, and thank you so much for joining me today. This day happens to be the one year anniversary of Soft Landing Podcast! This time last year I launched the very first episode. Thank you so much for your support over this year, it has gone by so quickly, and I can’t wait to see what direction we will go in year two. We are celebrating, not just by talking about carpet and all of the wonderful things it does, but also by having a super fun giveaway AND a really cool PDF Guide to Getting Started that you can download for FREE. First - the giveaway - I am so excited to share this with you. I am giving away a free 45 minute Creative Consultation to one lucky winner. This is an in-depth one-on-one conversation between you and me. We will discuss anything and everything about your home, your renovation projects, any interior design questions you have, all the advice I can give you. These sessions are jammed packed and super efficient, it’s a great way to work with an interior designer, especially if you are doing lots of DIY projects and just want a little guidance, reassurance, and ideas. All you have to do to enter is write a review of this podcast on Apple Podcast and give it a five start rating. Then just take a screen shot of the review and email it to me at amy.everard@softlandingstudio.com - I will of course include that email in the show notes. I will be announcing the winner in two weeks via Instagram, so bring on the reviews!

Secondly, I have created a really fun and functional quiz that will help you when you are in those very early stages of planning and you know something isn’t working in your home, but you don’t know what direction to take or even where to begin. My Guide to Getting Started will help you figure out what your space needs to get it shaped up and looking fabulous. This guide is absolutely free and you can download it by going to my website softlandingstudio.com

So, on with the show! Today is all about carpets and area rugs, and if you’re like me, this is a favorite element in interiors. Adding carpeting to a space helps tie it all together, it makes a room feel cozy and conversational. I’ve said this before, but the floor of a space takes up the most visual real estate, meaning whatever is on the floor is the majority of what you see. I love going to the movies and whenever I go, I check to see what carpet is used outside of the concession stand and in the corridor down to the theaters.  For years, a lot of the larger chains have used a variety of really intensely pattern, very colorful, and arguably unattractive carpets. Even though these movie theater carpets are kind of an eye sore (and recently I’ve seen theaters with much more refined selections), they play many important roles in the function of the theater itself. Like for instance, wayfinding. Most everything else in a movie theater corridor is fairly plain and dark, and the patterning on the floor is intended to help guide you through the many twists and turns in a megaplex. It’s also intended to camouflage popcorn butter stains, but your carpet can do all of these things while also looking incredibly gorgeous. We’ll start by talking about the fundamentals of carpet, so the next time you’re looking for an area rug or even if you dare to go wall-to-wall, you will be a carpet expert and know what to look for, and what to avoid.

Carpet is a textile, and textiles, like clothing and bedding - is made from fibers. The three most common fibers in carpet are wool, nylon, and silk. Wool is a great carpet fiber because it is very resilient, stain resistant, naturally flame retardant, and it absorbs dye and pigment like a sponge,  so it’s available in tons of colors. Wool does have the tendency to shed, and it is an upfront investment for sure. Synthetic alternates to wool are considerably less expensive.

Silk is another favorite fiber used for carpets and area rugs. Silk is as strong as is it soft, and while it tends to absorb dye with a more muted result, a silk carpet can feel like a true luxury, especially in a space like a bedroom where your street clothes and shoes are less likely to be. It’s no surprise that silk carpeting is expensive, but it’s important to remember it’s also very challenging to clean, and it’s best suited for extremely low-traffic areas. Silk, like wool, is prone to shedding and fuzzing.

The most common fiber for carpet is nylon. Nylon, and especially recycled nylon, is an excellent choice for carpeting - it’s resilient, tough, cleanable, and available in any color you can dream up.  The main downside is the hand, or the way the carpet feels when you touch it, isn’t as soft as silk or as distinguished as wool. But Nylon is least likely of all the fibers to shed. Now let’s talk a little bit about shedding because if you’ve ever purchased a new rug or carpet, shedding and fuzzing is a pretty common occurrence, especially in the world of affordable rugs. And frankly, it’s kind of a nightmare. Fuzz balls and fibers just seem to be everywhere, for weeks. Shedding can be a result of poor quality construction in a carpet, but it can also occur with high end rugs - especially with natural fibers like wool and silk that are made into spun yarn. The structure of natural spun yarn is built from naturally occurring shorter fibers. Because the fibers length only allows them to bond together to a certain extent, they will release over time. This should subside after a few good runs with the vacuum. Most of the time, although I’ve talked to friends who had infinitely shedding carpets. If you want to avoid shedding and fuzzing all together, the best solution is to chose a synthetic fiber, like Nylon, which is a polymer that is extruded as a continuous filament yarn. When you see this process happening it looks like a giant shower head raining down endless fibers of nylon, it’s pretty cool. This means that when the fibers are twisted into yarn, they stay together and don’t fall off or separate. This is the common practice in commercial carpets, but retail residential rugs and carpets often don’t have this level of solid construction. This is certainly a detailed topic that requires a lot of research and experience based knowledge, and it’s a great reason to get an interior designer to help you for the day and recommend some solid carpet options. I will say that companies such as Mohawk, Interface Flor, and Milliken, all provide products that meet this criteria and will keep your floors fuzz-free.

Now that you have an understanding of the fibers and yarns, we can talk about what makes carpet really special - the pile. This is all about how the carpet is assembled and finished, and, fair warning, it’s a little on the technical side, but we are going to run through it because it can be helpful when you’re shopping for a carpet to understand the kind of detailed information you want to see. If you don’t see any details about pile height or density, that’s a good indicator that you’re looking at a lower quality product, no matter how it’s being marketed to you. Pile refers to the density, shape, and height of the carpet yarns.  Carpet yarns are either woven or tufted on to a backing, and the pile is determined by the length and quantity of the yarns, plus how the yarns are cut and finished. The denser and shorter the pile, the more durable the carpet. In commercial environments, dense, short pile is really the only type of acceptable carpet. In homes, higher piles can be used in low traffic areas. High pile carpets feel more luxurious - think shag carpeting as the most extreme example.  Once the yarns are attached to the backing, they are usually cut or sheered to create different textures. Some carpets are not sheered at all - these are referred to as loop carpets, which includes the style referred to as Berber. Keeping the loops of yarn uncut prevents any kind of directional shifting - like when you vacuum your carpet and see the path left behind. This will happen on any carpet where the loops are cut, including tip sheering, Frieze, Velvet, and Saxony. If you want a carpet that is a good combination of durable and brings a lot of interesting texture to your room, look for a carpet that has a mix of loops, cut loops, and a variation in pile height. The carpet I grew up with in suburbia was tan, cut pile, all one height; and while there are benefits to this type of carpet because it’s so middle of the road  in all categories, choosing a carpet that has variation in texture, height, and yarn color will help hide wear and tear, but will still bring tons of visual interest to your space.

So zooming out just a little bit, there are three main types of carpet in terms of size and installation. First there’s broadloom, which is one giant roll of carpet, traditionally twelve feet wide, installed wall-to-wall in a space. This is the most budget friendly carpet by far, and while wall-to-wall broadloom isn’t in fashion right now, I predict a come back. I’m not saying you should cover up your gorgeous wood flooring with this stuff like everyone did in the 80’s, but broadloom can feel really luxurious in a bedroom or a home office, it’s great for acoustics, and it’s a good flooring choice if you have kids because it’s soft. 

Then there’s the beloved area rug. I think area rugs might be the group favorite, and I understand why. Retailers make these look very cute graphically - they come in fun colors, they add interesting patterns to the room, but everything we talked about with yarn and pile still applies to these puppies, and I think area rugs are the product that will most likely be poor quality. They can  fade, shed, flatten, and stain over time, because they are so popular and every has to have them, so naturally they get watered down in quality. There are many companies that make amazing hand tufted area rugs of good quality, but these can be exorbitantly expensive. 

My favorite option over both broadloom and areas rugs is the magical carpet tile. These ingenious building blocks get a bad rep for being bland and dwelling only in poorly lit office spaces. But I feel passionately that carpet tiles are the way of the future. And I feel like I’ve mentioned this a lot on the podcast, so if you’ve heard me go on about carpet tiles in homes before, thank you for your patience. Carpet tiles are usually square 24”x24” sections of carpet that are used together to create distinct patterns, or can be installed to look extremely seamless. In the last ten years tile shapes have become available in so many options, there are hexagonal tiles, triangle tiles, plank tiles - you name it. They are easy to customize to any room size, they can be used in a wall-to-wall application or as an area rug. Carpet tiles are super easy to install because you are laying them down one-by-one, rather than rolling out an endless run of broadloom, which you need two pairs of hands for, minimum. You don’t have to adhere them to the floor, many come with industrial strength clear stickers that you attach to the back, connecting one tile to the next. So, there’s actually nothing holding them down, which means zero damage to the floor, but they won’t shift around because their backing is heavy enough to anchor them in place. You can reconfigure them if you move or decide you want to put the tiles in a different room. They come in so many different textures. Interface even has a shag carpet tile, and so many of the styles install with a seamless look, so you get the appearance of a continuous carpet. They are incredibly durable and easy to clean, and if they do get stained you can easily replace a single tile rather than the entire carpet, which is ultimately an important move sustainability-wise, but also saves you time and money.

One of my favorite things about carpet tiles is that because they are modular, they can really end up being any size, proportion, or shape. This is a lot more limited when working with area rugs, which usually come in industry standard sizes of 6’ x 8’, 8’ x 10’, 10’ x 12’, and so on. But these sizes don’t always work with the shape of every room. And what’s more, how you place and configure an area rug in a room has a HUGE impact on the visual size perception of that room. Area rugs ultimately chop up a room visually, and if the rug isn’t sized correctly or, my pet peeve, if furniture isn’t placed correctly on the rug, the room will end up looking smaller and less organized. So, how to do you size a carpet, whether you’re going with tiles or an area rug? How do you place it in your room to really help tie things together?

An area rug in a room should act like a great spring coat. It brings everything together, it makes things look polished, and you’ll get tons of complements on it because it’s the first thing that catches someone’s eye. Just like a coat, an area rug has to be the right fit. Or think of it this way, the area rug wants to be the beautiful catch-all tray for your living room furniture,  or a beautiful picture frame for everything. If your carpet is too small, and is really only sitting under one or two pieces of furniture, it’s not accomplishing this, it’s almost just acting as an oversized floor pillow. The majority of your furniture, in whatever room you are working with, should be on the area rug. It’s fine to have a hand full of pieces that are not on the rug, but they should be the exception, not the rule. The most important rule of thumb to remember about an area rug is that when it comes to furniture, it’s either off the carpet or on the carpet. There’s no half stepping, no chairs sitting right at the edge, partially on the carpet and partially on the adjacent floor. This looks cluttered, unintentional, and is just plain bad design. And I see other designers make this mistake all the time, it’s a common one.  Not only should pieces be all in or all off, but what is on, should have about 4-9” of breathing room from the edge of the carpet, so that the bounds of the carpet are visible. We want to see that frame!

Another mistake I see often is trying to place an area rug in a small room. It’s critical to have your area rug end prior to a main path of circulation. So if you have to cross your living room to get to your dining room, the area rug should not be in that path. This can be a minor tripping hazard, but it’s also part of establishing good flow in any space. Again, with the idea of an area rug as a picture frame to your space, anything that cuts through the picture, ruins it. So keep thinking of your area rug as a container that helps organize your room, using it as a bounding box that pulls every other element in the room together.

I hope you found these tips on carpet inspiring and motivating to get into your space, and help it shine, the way it deserves. I can’t wait to talk to you next time, until then, take amazing care of yourself. Bye!