carpet dilemma - can anyone help?

[sphil]

Be gentle with me, oh housework superstars...

The carpet in our sitting room is cream. It was in good condition when we moved in, but a year later and it looks terrible, largely as a result of the DSes going around in bare feet, spilt drinks, wee etc. and partly down to me NOT being housewife superstar and hoovering it twice a day as I should.

Dh and I were going to wait until DS2 was toilet trained before getting a new one, but it's getting to the stage where it looks so awful that we must do something about it, and Ds2's toilet training isn't exactly progressing atm anyway (he's autistic so it's going to take some time)

So - we need to find a carpet that is hardwearing and as stainproof as possible - preferably in dark green, which would suit the paintwork. Any recommendations - or tell me what NOT to buy! (We can't have wooden floors as the room is freezing anyway and it would make it too cold for comfort!)

[jellyshoeswithdiamonds]

Sorry, can't recommend a particular carpet. To get rid of stains on carpets I use two capfuls of Dettol diluted in a bucket of hot water and the white microfibre cloths from Tesco (88p for 3).

[Overmydeadbody]

What's your budget?

[countingto10]

Is it necessary to have carpet - hard flooring maybe. I have 4 DS's and a creamy colour in my living - it probably looks the same as yours at the moment !

We made the decision to only have carpet in the living room as I wanted something soft underfoot - we had planned to shut off room to DC but that hasn't happened. Am still trying to toilet train my nearly 4yr old but he still poos himself or goes on the floor (tearing my hair out!!!!).

We have laminate flooring in the bedrooms (got fed up with scrubbing vomit and the like in the middle of the night etc) and we have sanded floorboards in the hall and dining room which are easier to clean. We do plan to put Karndean flooring down when we have got the money ! Have a look on their website.

In the meantime, I am going to get Christmas out of the way and then get the carpet professionally cleaned (it came up well last time). If you need to get organic waste stains out of the carpet, I got a stain remover from my vet which worked better than anything else - it was for removing puppy accidents etc.

Hope this helps and good luck with the toilet training (I have two ASD DS but they were easier to train than the youngest DS )

[maidamess]

Can I suggest hard flooring but a couple of washable cotton rugs for underfoot.?

Dark carpet will hide liquid stains but will show every bit of fluff and lint and needs hoovering much more than light IMO.

I reckon carpet is the pits...germ ridden, hard to keep clean and labour intensive.

[sphil]

Thanks everyone - we are now definitely thinking of hard floor with rugs.

[GentleOtter]

I got an industrial carpet offcut from a carpet shop which takes just about anything thrown at it, is waterproof but is soft underfoot.