Please recommend me a carpet for hall, stairs and landing

[WellTidy]

I am looking for something really hard wearing, in a neutral. But nothing too light, as we have DC and there’s bound to be occasions when they come in from the garden or the road with mud or even worse on their shoes. Never bought carpet before, so I don’t know what is an acceptable price or composition for this area.

If you've got straight flights of stairs then I highly recommend striped carpet as it doesn't show marks as easily. I had 80/20 (80% wool) but the polypropylene stuff is pretty good these days and is bleach friendly etc. It's a case of getting a carpet fitter over with samples really as it's personal taste and also what looks right in your light. Make sure you get one suitable for heavy traffic - it will say on the sample.

I'm not sure what's open near you at the moment but we visited two carpet shops, both had a really good selection, variety of prices and knowledgeable staff.

Pretty much everything is beige or grey so be prepared for that but it sounds like what you might want.

Like PP said the polypropylene ones are fairly robust these days and should last well. We went for an expensive wool one with a teal chevron design for our stairs because it was a small area we wanted to make an impact (plain wooden halls and landing).

Thanks - I will seek out a polypropylene one. We don’t have straight stairs - we have two turns on one staircase from the ground floor to the first floor and larvae landing, and two turns on the staircase from the first floor to the second floor which has a much smaller landing. I love stripes in anything, but I think this will mean that we will have to go plain.

Any idea what is an acceptable price per metre for a polypropylene carpet for heavy duty use please?

Larvae landing sounds intriguing...!
I've paid 12.99 per metre for mine and its costing me £1200 for three bedrooms, landing and stairs including new underlay. Just hall stairs and landing is probably 500 maybe? Depends how big it is of course...

We went for grey strips as it hides everything and still looks good.

Roger Oates do striped carpet that can go around turns into stairs, if you like striped carpet. Very expensive though.

We just bought wool carpet with a bit of a textured pattern as well, that was about £46/m but can get it from around £30/m from carpetright. The chevrons and boucle types are really nice. Bit easier on the environment than carpets with a plastic element too.

Larvae landing should read ‘large’ landing! There is such a huge variation in price for carpets. I’ve never bought them - always had good enough carpets or flooring wherever we’ve lived, so far. £12.99 would be amazing, I think £30 would be really top end, but I will have to take a proper look. Thanks for the Roger Oates tip.

The wool chevron we picked was £45 psqm but a close second choice was a really nice polypropylene at £19psqm. It was a sort of tweedy look that would be really forgiving.

gradetoolisted - you must be minted if you have Roger Oates! It comes in at about £10k for a 20m roll. Very hard wearing but not a budget option!

I really loved this one:

www.alternativeflooring.com/collection/wool/quirky_collection/quirky_fair_isle/annie.html

But I'm going to wait until my children are not toddlers and my cats have learned not to rip carpets to shreds for the laughs.

An 80/20 wool twist carpet that is 40 or 50 oz should do the trick. Beige probably has more longevity than grey. Grey is ending a 10/15 year cycle as the trendy neutral. And will soon look passé. Beiges all have an undertone. Try to stay away from pinky beige, it doesn’t play well with colours of another undertone. A heavy weight 80/20 wool twist with a good underlay will steam clean well and easily last 20 years, so you want something versatile that you won’t get bored with.

@dopenguinsdance we saved up to use it on our small staircase and used Westex for the rest of the rooms- it was nowhere near £10k thankfully! The other cheaper option is to get the edging tape for a normal carpet- the blogger The Frugality has a good post on it and how to deal with winding staircases.

I had this adamcarpets.com/carpet-detail/?carpet=314 80/20 wool tufted in my last house hall stairs and landing, including a turn on the stairs. It wore really well over a few years and didn't show any dirt! I think it was about 26.99 per sqmtr

You're probably right. The person I know who used it, needed 20m just for their staircase, with hallway & landings on top. Made to order and looks stunning. But I'm very sure about the prices cause I ordered it for them!

Oh, and the other option to frugality style taped edges is to use standard carpet, cut it as a runner for stairs but have the edges whip-stitched (good fitters have a special machine to do it) rather than taped.

Misty9 it's an Adam carpet we've gone for. Whilst I'm glad to hear it lasted well we also paid close to twice as much psqm!

@ParadeOfRemotes

Misty9 it's an Adam carpet we've gone for. Whilst I'm glad to hear it lasted well we also paid close to twice as much psqm!

It might have been more and was 7 years ago if that's any consolation....?! Lovely carpet and way better than the polyprop we had fitted in the living room at the same time.

Agree with @dopenguinsdance re whipped edges. You know your stuff!

With the Adams carpet for the runner we had to purchase the yarn separately to match the carpet (to do the whipping) and that was an additional £50. With a polyprop in a neutral colour the stitching guy can usually get a close enough match from his standard stock and there's no additional charge to buy the yarn just the cost of whipping (£10 pm)

That's what they told us at the shop, and I've bought the special Adams yarn like a sucker so I'm hoping that's correct!

Empress I am really interested in what you say about avoiding pink undertones in a beige. I really want to avoid anything with a pink undertone but I am not sure I would recognise a pink undertone if I saw it! I’ve googled 80/20 wool twist carpets and come up with this random page here - please would you tell me which of the colours has a pink undertone and then I will hopefully know what I am looking to avoid when I go to my local carpet shop in person?

@WellTidy, I can’t tell by looking at a computer screen either, but they offer 3 free samples. I would order three samples that I fancied and look at them against each other. It’s easier to see under stones when you are looking at different versions of beige against each other rather than on their own. A piece of plain white a4 can help too.

Empress I’ve ordered samples. It is so hard to tell online. Comparing them is a good idea - I have more chance of working out what a pink undertone is when I see them alongside each other. I am also wary of going too pale for such a heavy use area. The carpet we inherited in the hall stairs and landing is a very pale cream and it was unblemished when we moved in. It is very stained now with spilt drinks, dirt and mud. We are all quite messy clearly.

Good luck @WellTidy. If you put a yellowish beige against a pink beige sample, the pink beige will look “dirty.” It’s usually a dead giveaway.