Ideas for a living room carpet?

[LadyThompson]

I am going to have to buy a carpet for the living room in the 200 yr old cottage we are renovating, as there is just concrete on the floor at the mo. It needs to cover not just the living room but up the stairs, and landing, and then two sets of other stairs which go in different directions from the landing. Can't really have stair runners as the stairs have board on. I need something cheap, hardwearing and nice. I have peeped in John Lewis but I suppose I ought to go to a cheap carpet place. But I don't want something that looks naff. I like creamy coloured carpets but in areas of such high traffic I think it's asking for trouble. Any brain waves on colour or type? What do you reckon I ought to budget (living room is small - only 17 feet by 15 feet. Landing is probably only about 8 feet by 6 feet.

hi again lady t!
i've used seagrass in the places which had been concreted over

Hello Thank you so much for answering. To tell you the truth, I have had to make so many decisions about the house over recent weeks (it's a shell, so everything to do) that I have now got decision fatigue! Also, spent three times our original budget due to more extensive structural work, more windows needing replacing than we thought and the complexities of the plumbing, that I am now on a tight budget for what's left. Assume you have finished your cottage reno job, so please tell me there is light at the end of the tunnel We are in Oxfordshire, the cottage was built at the end of the 18th century.

How much is seagrass roughly? Is it easy to look after? What about stains (I have a 15 month old, another on the way and will have an open fire in the living room).

nightmare lol
yes mine is long finished thankfully but saying that when we bought it it wasn't to our liking as alot of features had been either covered up or taken out
my 3 are somewhat older than yours but the seagrass has worn well and shows v little dirt and doesn't need constant hoovering(a huge plus point!)
saying that it hasn't faced things such as dare i say it vomit etc
i would imagine that you're possibly looking in the region of £300+ inc.fitting for a room that size
the dcs have jute in their bedrooms and that seems to have coped well with a variety of children's stains

Seagrass ig great - not too hard underfoot and you can scrub it - mine came through 2 babies and 2 dogs ( one v. old, the other a puppy) very well. When we moved house it still looked very good after several years. I had sisal in our new house for a change, but that was terrible, stained very easily and impossible to clean. Now have carpet again ans will probably move soon and it is more purchase friendly.

We have the same neutral coloured carpet on our stairs and the 1st & 2nd floors of the house. It's a townhouse so the living room is upstairs, consequently the stairs get alot of traffic and food & drink carried up them. We moved in last year and the carpets were 9 years old, must be good quality as I've had them cleaned and they are as good as new. I should add we have a dog & DS and previous owners had 2 young children.

We have seagrass in our house (was there when we moved in) and is fine though not the most comfy underfoot - will be replacing it with a textured pale carpet (what we had in last place - texture hid a multitude of sins!) when finally redo our house which is more comfy underfoot but pretty hard wearing.