Spectacular floral carpet - Help me MN!

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Eek

We're moving into this house soon and the carpet is... noticeably patterned. We'll be knocking out a few walls next year so don't want to replace this carpet yet but dear god it's painful to look at. And it's in several rooms.

Is there any way to tone it down? At all? Maybe a lick of paint to the walls? Or the floor

Urgh, it looks like a pub carpet, sorry. Have you got lots of large rugs you can use to cover it?

large rugs or dirt cheap laminate laid directly over the carpet

Ah. Ok [rallies self] I can think of three suggestions:

First, don't try to fight it. Keep the rest of your decor as pared back as possible, and go for a retro theme. (Though understanding that you probably don't want to chuck out your existing furniture to accommodate a floral carpet.)

Second, get some cheap big plain rugs and cover up expanses of it.

Third, if you're not going with my first suggestion (which would probably involve white walls) make sure you paint in a colour that doesn't 'sing' with red. When I moved into my current house the kitchen was painted yellow with scarlet woodwork, vast expanses of scarlet tiles, orange tiled floor and orangey wood-effect units. i found that plain white next to the red really emphasised it. The colour that seemed to cool it down was a pale cool putty colour.

Maybe I'm going blind but I actually quite like it. Not too pub carpety. I have seen worse.

Have been Googling images of pub carpet [why don't I just go to bed?] and they are all utterly vile, except possibly the paisley one yours is nothing like as bad (just very red)

Sossiges I suspect you may be spending too much time in pubs and have therefore become immune to their carpets. Genius

devora wow, sounds like you know my eye pain several times over. I'll try a tester pot of putty coloured paint, too. I was going to go for white but you're right about making the effect of the red worse.

So the plan is:

1. spend more time in pubs
2. trip to ikea for big cheap rugs

Anything else? Sunglasses maybe?

You might learn to love it .

It won't show the dirt. Actually, your retinas will be so badly burnt you'll probably never see dirt again.

1. spend more time in pubs - is the right answer

Sossiges I must be going blind too because I truly have seen much worse! Lived in rental house with green pub carpet, awful. I agree with toning in, and not bright white walls, they made our carpet look worse! Rugs also didn't help us as they seemed to emphasise the floor! We went for light furnishings and pared down furniture, eventually you do stop noticing it alcohol helps

Oh my god - it's dreadful. You have my sympathies - have been there and just had to live with it. My rental was huge swirly multicoloured pattern and the landlord had chosen bright orange sofas and chairs to "go with it".
Options:

• Roll it up - buy a horrendously cheap synthetic carpet which will mark if you drop the iron on it and give you carpet burns in seconds if you get carried away but won't burn your retinas

• Ground floor flat so I assume it is cement floor. Live with the cold, ditch the carpet and the underlay. Paint the floor in nice thick floor paint and stick rugs on top. Add extra heaters. Bonus you can just mop the floor and beat the rugs. Cement needs to be in good nick though.
• Find the biggest rugs you can to cover it all up.
• Buy lots of thick dust sheets [you can reuse them when the work starts] - tack them to the carpet and then stick rugs over the top. You'll still need big rugs though as you won't be able to hoover dust sheets too easily
• Speak to a flooring specialist about buying flooring that you can lift back up and re-lay when the walls come down. You just need to make sure you have the extra materials pre-purchased.

Any help?

Just thought I'd let you know that the paint we used to calm down our riot of red was Homebase Putty. Then on the units (yes, I painted over those, and the tiles) we used Homebase Biscuit, which is just a bit lighter. The trick is to get a cool light putty colour, not one with too much yellow or red in or it will just look like a nicotine-stained pub lounge.

Let us know what you decide to do - and if it works

I second taking them up and seeing what there is underneath. If it's just concrete, I would rather live with that and some rugs thank see that carpet every day. If it's floorboards, then you're sorted!

Concrete would be hideously dusty, get some strong migraine meds before you move in

Not necessarily dusty (only if it is bad concrete!), and if it is you can get a product to put on it which will stop it making dust.

I quite like it. But then we've lived with a shocking pink carpet throughout the whole of our house for the last five years, including the bathrooms, while renovating.

You will get used to it! I think that rugs don't really work myself, as they seem to draw attention to the floor. I'd go with the putty coloured wall suggestion and just accept the carpet as part of the pain of renovating a house.

This is a 100% first world problem you know.

That reminds me of a funny thing that happened - I'd been living with a family in a developing country for a year, and when I went back to the UK, I offered to post something useful back to them. They asked for a few rolls of more stylish wallpaper...

Aha, so bad decor not just a first world problem then

if it's hessian backed turn it upside down! won't fit everywhere but cut off awkward sticky out bits and have a square of carpet like wot they did before fitted carpets

It is far better than laminate! Keep everything simple and live with it it looks good quality.

You'll get used to it

Is that a serving hatch in the corner of the picture? I'd so love a serving hatch.

It's growing on me, I quite like it now. Tomorrow I'll love it.

Just think of it as a feature wall and walk around with your head to one side.

With brilliant white walls and white curtains it could look quite cool.

Well I am 100% in the first world mintyy (or a relatively economically developed country, as I like to think of it) so I guess that's the kind of problem I'm going to face.

I'm liking these ideas, think I'll try something different in each room and see what works best. Not sure I have the guts to take it up and paint the concrete as it's single glazed and I might miss the carpet come winter.

Funny you should mention kitchen units devora . They are not bad, just a little retro, as is the bathroom (I've added pics). I can confirm that sky blue does not tone with the carpet.

And oh yes it's a serving hatch. First thing I'm going to after moving in drinks is see if I fit through it.

Have decided a fancy dress housewarming may be in order to match the decor :)

I think the carpet is quite nice in a retro kind of way, the colours are fine.
We have lived with the thinnest greige carpet and no underlay for 4 years so my benchmark is perhaps a bit out of kilter!
I'd leave it while you renovate and keep the decor simple in there for now.

The kitchen units look rather sweet, condition looks pretty good. Will you keep them?
Love the hatch too, you must keep that, great feature!
Is it a 1960s house?