I hate the person light carpets have turned me into.

[Anticyclone]

We bought a house last year. The previous owners were clearly people who never got dirty or ever did any kind of outside activity, as they decided to carpet the whole house from front door to rear patio door in a light cream carpet.

We maxed out our budget on this house so have no money to change anything at the moment, and the carpet is actually in good condition so it seems silly to tear it up.

But we have 2 under 3, and it's not possible to enter the house from front or back without arriving directly on cream carpet. We've put down some mats, but I find myself getting so stressed over the tiniest bits of dirt. I wish I could just let the DC run free like in our old house with hard floors downstairs, and I worry that my complex over this might affect them negatively. We've already had to stop them running around with any slightly messy food.

I just can't stop trying to protect the carpet, as I know we're going to have to live with it for a while longer, and it would annoy me so much if it got a massive stain somewhere obvious.

How can I chill out and start enjoying this house without stressing about the bloody carpet?

How long will it be before you can afford to replace the carpets with something sensible?

What if you just let the carpets get ruined and have stained carpets between now and then?

We had cream carpets, children and cats in a house we bought from a couple with grown up family. The only stains that wouldn't come out were tomato ketchup and blu tac, most everything else mopped up (although DH was confined to the kitchen with curry). A spray bottle with a 10% solution of bio washing powder in water is useful to have on stand by for quick clean ups.

We had big colourful rugs to break up the vast expanse of cream carpet, and had the capers cleaned every now and then.

Invest in a rug doctor machine?

Carpets cleaned, not capers.

I feel your pain op. We bought our town house last year and the whole thing is carpeted throughout in light beige. We have 2 young dc and 2 cats.

I Hoover a lot and use a lot of stain remover/bio washing powder. The hallway carpet is already ruined (despite mat!) so we are planning to take that up and replace with vinyl flooring in the next few months. It's going to be a while before we can afford to replace the rest of it though!

I sympathise. In your shoes I would get some really large cotton rugs and try to cover the whole carpet as much as possible.

Runners, mats and rugs. Everywhere!

I feel your pain but it is doable without turning into a screaming harpy. Do you do shoes off in the house? Can you get to Ikea for shoe storage? Loads available and if everyone automatically stores their shoes on entry it cuts down dramatically on carpet stress. Ordinary black socks are ok but black sports socks are not and yy to rugs and mats on entry points.

Rugs, rugs and more rugs.

I only have cream carpet in my room for this reason. Dd still managed to spill dark grey nail varnish over it so I had to rearrange furniture. She also walked bright red lipstick over it, luckily vanish worked a dream. I couldn't deal with it through the house.

Prioritise replacing the hall carpet. Presumably it's not a big area so just do laminate or vinyl for now so you have somewhere moppable for people to take their shoes off.

I feel your pain, and I don't even have kids! (Just a very messy, very black cat).

My robohoover is a lifesaver.

Two options:

1. Just trash the carpets as you want to replace them anyway

2. Become a shoes off household and have a 'no eating anywhere but the kitchen' rule. No painting or messy play anywhere but the kitchen. Have a massive doormat by each door and shoe storage (and you can keep a pair of old 'garden trainers' by the patio etc and not have the children traipse through the house in shores). Buy hallway runners and a big rug for each room.

I don't get the carpet hatred? I love a nice light colored carpet.

Thanks for all the practical advice! We are already a shoes off household, but it's not easy to police guests, especially toddlers. And now as the weather is improving we want to go out into the garden with guests, which means an almighty faff of shoes off at the front door and then back on again at the back door. Annoyingly sometimes people just head out into the garden in their socks, and then are happy to rub them all over the sofa when they come back inside! I think I would prefer shoes on at all times in this scenario!

Rugs, and Aldi have a carpet cleaning machine at the moment, cheaper than the cheapest ones we found when we bought ours. But rugs were what really saved our carpets.