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Expert Tips Homewares RENO ADDICT

Interiors Addict reno: choosing carpet

Sponsored by CarpetCall

In our new house, we decided we would in fact like carpet in our bedrooms. While we are long time fans of hard flooring and had an oak-look floating floor through our last home, there’s just something about stepping out of bed in the morning onto lovely soft carpet! We always slightly regretted not having the bedrooms carpeted last time, so this time we did it, and the playroom too (did I mention we have a playroom? BEST EVER!).

Our playroom. Of course it isn’t usually this tidy but rest assured I will never STYLE this room for you because it’s meant to be fun and practical and somewhere to shut the door on the mess, so it doesn’t need to look good to grown ups!

The playroom was previously cork floor! When was the last time you saw that, eh?! And while it is probably the perfect flooring for kids to play (and spill) on, it doesn’t exactly look beautiful!

So with a toddler in mind, we obviously wanted a carpet that was super forgiving and stain resistant. But it had to look and feel nice too.

We chose the Lasting Impressions carpet in Cloud (a mid grey) and we’re really happy with it. Everyone who has been to visit has commented on it too. It feels lovely when you step out of bed onto it, Seb just loves lying on it playing cars and any spills or sticky marks in the playroom have been very easily removed. In fact, this has probably made me a little too relaxed about what food I let him wander in there with!

A representative from CarpetCall came out to see us and measure up with a boot full of samples (this is a free service) and I thought I’d share a few things I learnt about choosing carpet:

  • It sounds simple but you need to select carpet in the rooms where it will be laid. You can’t do this in store or online. It’s a bit like the rule about getting a tester pot before you commit to painting a whole room (oh, I’ve made this mistake now and I’ll be blogging about it soon!). That’s why it’s great if the carpet store comes out to you. Lighting and your interior colour scheme and style will all impact how the carpet looks in your home which could be completely different to how it looks in the showroom.
  • Before this step, you can start to get an idea of what’s available by using an online tool like CarpetCall’s Room Visualiser. This may help you choose samples you’d like to see in your home.
  • There’s a lot of lingo involved with carpets! They’re manufactured in different ways to give different looks and feels. The main types are level loop pile, multi-level loop pile, cut pile (the most commonly used in Australian homes), tip sheared pile, cut and loop and Axminster and Winton Wool (the latter being the creme de la creme of the carpet world).
  • You have two main choices of material: wool or synthetic (or a combo of the two). Wool is more expensive, many would say looks and feels better and of course it’s a natural material. It does shed though, and it’s not as forgiving as a synthetic carpet. I’ve owned a large cream rug so I know. And yeah, won’t be doing that again with a toddler…
  • Synthetic (nylon/polypropolene) carpets are water-resistant, stain-resistant and durable. Some say nylon carpets can look just as good as wool.
  • Using a good quality vacuum cleaner with the correct attachment designed for carpet will make a different to how your flooring looks and lasts.
  • You should have your carpet steam cleaned no less than once every two years (CarpetCall recommend using professionals rather than DIY-ing).

Book your free in-home measure and quote with CarpetCall today.

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Expert Tips Homewares House Tours

Interior inspo: 2 different rug looks in Jen’s living room

Sponsored by Carpet Call

If there’s one thing I get asked about a lot, it’s rugs and if there’s one thing that drives me nuts when I see people getting it wrong, it’s rugs! So when Carpet Call recently asked me to road test a couple of theirs, which are really affordable, in my own home, I was happy to share the results. Because if there’s one rug rule I trot out time and time again (and I have of course picked this up from the experts over the years, and they unanimously agree!), it’s that bigger is always better!

I’m a big believer in using rugs, especially if you have hard floors, like we do. I love the look, practicality and blank canvas of a hard floor, but you can’t beat rugs for adding comfort under foot, colour, pattern, texture, or all of the above, depending on your space. They’re also fantastic for zoning tricky open plan layouts.

The problem with larger rugs — ones where you can get all of the furniture on it (or at least a leg of each piece of furniture — is they can be really expensive. So what I’m really happy to show you with these two Carpet Call rugs, is that the affordable option can look pretty great.

I picked the patterned Dolce design from their modern range because I thought it would tie in nicely with my navy lounge, and boy, did it?! The reason it cost less than half what the wool rug I usually have there did, is because it is synthetic. But don’t turn your noses up! This makes it really stain resistant and easy to clean, and as I know a lot of you have kids, this is a major consideration. It looks so good, feels lovely and soft under foot and is nice and thick for sound insulation if you’re thinking about downstairs neighbours in a unit. If you prefer to splash out on natural fibres for your main living area, consider this kind of hardwearing rug for your playroom, kids’ room, entry or dining room.

With this Dolce rug, it obviously makes a big statement so my advice with a rug like this is to keep everything else quite plain. Any other patterns will fight with this. On the plus side, this rug is a great way to inject interest and colour into a room quickly and affordably, especially if you’re not brave with wall colours or are in a rental and can’t change paint or other furnishings like blinds.

For a completely different look, I wanted to show you the other extreme: a plain, cream coloured shag rug; the Risis design, which is one of their bestsellers.

This one is so soft underfoot. And it won’t shed, unlike wool rugs, which can shed for weeks (months even!). With a plain rug like this, you still get texture because of the longer pile, and you can afford to have more pattern and colour happening in the art, for example, or cushions.

Two things I really like about Carpet Call’s rugs are the free delivery and the fact they come in really big sizes; many are more than 3 metres long as the largest option. So remember, buy the biggest you can afford! And do mark out your proposed size on the floor in masking tape to give you a great idea of how it’ll look in the room. This can make buying online a little less daunting!

Of course, you can also pick up a rug from one of Carpet Call’s stores where you can see them in person and they’ll let you take three home for 24 hours to see how they work in your space before committing.

Shop Carpet Call’s rug range online