Carpeting styles for your home

If it’s time to buy new carpeting, you have a number of choices ahead of you. Color is probably the easiest choice, but you must also decide among a number of styles, textures and types of fiber. There are also different grades of carpet within each style, and different qualities. This article defines the different styles available.

Carpeting styles

Plush carpeting is a lightly twisted pile style. The color is uniform and the feel is very soft. It shows footprints, vacuum marks and furniture indentations more than other styles. But it has a wonderful feel, which is why it endures.

Saxony carpets are dense with closely packed tufts cut level. This is actually the most common type available today – it’s what you probably think of as standard. It shows footprints and marks the way plush does.

Cut-and-loop carpeting is economical and durable. It’s usually multicolored, and not all the tufts are the same height, which creates patterns both of texture and color. It’s not as soft or pleasurable to walk in barefooted as pile, but it holds up wonderfully and is very low maintenance.

Berber carpeting is tightly looped and rug-like. This makes it very durable, so it has recently become the carpeting of choice in apartments and high traffic areas. It’s typically sold in off-white shades and the yarn from which it’s woven usually has flecks of slightly darker color. This carpet does not easily show footprints or marks.

Level-loop carpeting has short and densely packed loops that clean easily and don’t trap dirt and dust like most types of carpeting. It’s made by weaving small loops of yarn into the carpet backing – a bit like those hook rugs, but more even textured.

Frieze carpeting is another type of pile carpet. Its yarn is packed into a “hardtwist”, meaning it’s been given an extra couple of turns compared to the other pile types. It’s a big more rough and less likely to show footprints than other piles, making it great for hallways and high traffic areas.

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