" You want a house visit from the installer for any. " Jan the carpet installer has already been to our home, measured, and advised. The showroom associates are also assisting.

I will start with a few disclaimers.

1) I do not have any wall to wall carpet in this house.

2) I would probably not want plaid carpet on an entire floor of a house, particularly not bedrooms.

And I like tartan carpet. I grew up in a house that had kelly green and bright red tartan in a basement, and except for one area under my dad's desk it stayed in great condition for 40 years. It was wool and commercial so probably closer to the $200 yard price point today. (I probably have the receipts somewhere: I save the "Interior Design" files when my dad sold the house)

{And I wanted to recarpet the large room at the top of my house, but I can't afford what I want, really. And the floors would have to refinished under, anyway. (And I probably won't refinish it, either) I think I am going to paint it and call it done. That's probably neither here nor there but that's where my mind is re: floors.}

But I am going to say this: I think that if everybody in America hated wall to wall carpet as much as Gardenweb says they do, or is as down-market as Gardenweb says it is, more carpet retailers, particularly to the trade carpet retailers would be out of business.

I have a friend who works for a to-the-trade retailer for a number of high end brands, both American and imported brands, many of which will do custom color combinations and such and their business is very healthy.

Do they do a lot of bound room sized rugs? Yes. But how different is this from wall to wall in many applications. I have bound in the two bedrooms and the margin of floor is about 5".

But he says they do a lot of full stairs, and still do a solid business in wall to wall carpet for bedrooms and dressing rooms and upstairs hallways. And expensive carpet. Some very expensive carpet.

And if you look at Architectural Digest (which isn't what it was) and World of Interiors and international interior design magazines, you still see wall to wall. No, not full house applications, and not multiple rooms done in the same neutral Stainmaster.

I think HGTV put it into a lot of people's heads that carpet is the most disgusting thing on earth, but if you go outside the "everyone can decorate, it's easy" message that they give, and the topical-ness of the style on that show, and outside the kind of middleclass conventions that your decorating has to appeal to every possible potential homeowner at your price point, -- I think carpet is still a thing, in the right place.

I have been here long enough that I can remember when every scrap of wallpaper in the entire house had to be removed Immediately if not sooner, because it was all so terrible. And now some of the same people are loving wallpaper. There's an awful lot of conformity here, but whatever you are supposed to conform to changes an awful lot, too. And over a relatively short period of time.

All true above to some degree,

That said? The Home Depot of the world will always have wall to wall business. The hardwood and area rug combo does nothing but grow and will continue to grow. We're never going back market to a full house of wall to wall carpet.

In fact, the value compared over time to hardwood is so poor, it is a joke.

The luxury brands? Antrim, and up market? Have survived due to wider width milling @ 15/16' and the designers creating area rugs. Probably a full 60% of selection would not be advised for wall to wall in any scenario!

Finally

There are other tiles, if you "hate" hardwood. Some LOOK like hardwood . That tile? It's the elephant in your house: )

We're never going back market to a full house of wall to wall carpet.

And we probably never should have had houses full of wall to wall carpet. It's a terrible choice for entryways, kitchens and bathrooms, all of which people were getting carpeted in the 1960s through 1980s, and I worked on a couple projects where the floor in the cheap construction was nothing more than a layer of plywood.

In fact, the value compared over time to hardwood is so poor, it is a joke.

It's true but it doesn't take some things into account. A real hardwood floor is a building material, and carpet is not. Carpet is a decorative surface treatment. Normal decorative surface treatments are never going to add the same value to a building. Even pricey decorative treatments may not. One of the reasons Zuber recommends hanging their scenics archivally is so they can be taken down, because $50,000 + of wallpaper is not necessarily something even a high-end buyer is going to pay "extra" for.

Where I grew up, at least until the late 1960s, site finished flooring was installed standard. And then lots of people carpeted over it right away. Hardwood flooring has always been standard where I live now, even in apartments, and I have taken wall to wall out over hardwoods. (The house I live in now was carpeted over hardwood on the second and third floors) . What's kind of interesting is that the 1830s-40s houses I lived in here, the original floors in the parlors and upstairs room had unfinished floors because they were meant to be carpeted in that caliber of house, I have some scraps of it from one place, pieces of narrow strips complete with the blue tacks it was installed with. So wall to wall wasn't necessarily a mid 20th c. phenomenon.

The hardwood and area rug combo does nothing but grow and will continue to grow.

Yes, if you are talking about hardwood. Particularly site-finished hardwood. Or perhaps engineered hardwood that Looks like site finished hardwood, and can be refinished at least once.

But that's not what we are talking about in a lot of construction, and with a lot of what we see here in Updating projects. Laminate isn't a "forever" material, and engineered flooring that can't be refinished isn't a "forever" material, and even factory finished short piece hardwood in the weird patchwork weathered finishes that people are doing are not "forever" materials. A lot of it is used like carpet was: a little of this a little of that, every room slightly different, floorings that are discontinued in two years. I am not sure how any of that adds much value either. Lots of "wood" floors being put in now are essentially the shag carpet of a few decades from ow

I hope never have to move again, but I would much rather buy a house with carpet I hated and had to do something about than a house with wood floors that I hated where I can't even refinish them and have to tear them out, deal with all the millwork that touches the flooring and so forth.

So well said, palimpsest. Nothing beats hardwood floors. Mine are over 100 years old and have been refinished once since we moved here 40 years ago. They look fabulous, and even when they show wear, look better than cheap laminate or vinyl.

I like your color palette and you seem to have a good idea of what you want -

as others have said the white flooring doesn’t jibe with your chosen colors/style, it is what it is.

I think the choices are to keep the white tile and adjust the palette or keep the colors you love and change the floor

The current floor + your preferred colors will make every decison hard and twist you in knots

^Yep la la Girl, I think because I am keeping the tile, I will now have to throw out my preferred design concept and go with something much more simple. Interesting how finding my dream plaid carpet is what lead to this.

Looking back at what I can see of your house in other posts, it seems like it is soft contemporary, with the white tile and that style of railing in the blond wood. That doesn't preclude all plaids, but I think your favored color scheme is probably too earthy-dark with the existing elements that are staying.

I'm going to start over with the entire design for the home.

But since I got this sample today, just curious what you think about it:

It's a lovely carpet but in someone else house.

My kitchen floor. The grout needs cleaning.

^ Oh my gosh Rho look at the real color of my tile floor grout in the closet where it's never been walked on:

My phone camera is really bad so it's a challenge to get a photo that accurately captures how the tile undertone/color looks in person. Here are a couple photos showing it with white paper for comparison:

mine is paper white. The grout started out like the grout in your closet.

Don't even think that anyone can accurately replicate the true color using any kind of camera and posting the photo on the internet. It's impossible. The only way you can determine what a color looks like is to see it with your own eyes, in your own space, with your own light.

My tiles are coming across to you all as "white" as evidenced by multiple posts in this discussion. But look at these photos below showing the foyer where we've primed the wall. My tile floors blend much better with those carpet samples than with the true-white primed wall. The actual colors as they appear in real life can't reliably be conveyed on a screen, but the "blend factor" can be conveyed pretty accurately in this case:

There's still the issue of grid on grid pattern, and the supposed issue of style being incongruous with the home. But maybe color is not as much of an issue as everyone thought?

The tile is the issue.

You don't have a "resource issue". : ) Go look at new flooring. Or pick a flat, less textured/grid style broadloom.

The insistence on plaid with the tile is a .................

But go ahead and keep forcing it.

No insistence Jan. No forcing it. I've said multiple times now that due to feedback here I am starting over with the entire design concept.

I was looking at this.......??

That photo is showing how the colors blend. Trying to convey the tiles are not white.

I guess I'm just trying to determine how far off my original preferred color palette is (see OP.)

This below is my (admittedly goofy) profile photo - maybe this general direction works for the base color scheme, and I can still have more of my "fall colors" in art, on pillows, etc.?

Why don't you do the very smart thing. Get yourself an interior designer/local.

Sit down together, get the feel the colors you want....INTERPRETED for the house you have. The money you spend on that, versus crowd sourcing opinion here, will be the money save in regrets.

When she tells you to lose that tile? Try not to scream at her: )

It is NOT ALL about one thing. It never is.

I think the relative saturation of the colors you are using is what is going to make the tiles look so "white" when they are actually kind of beigeish. Particularly because they are on the floor, I think.

This is a picture of the tile in the relative dark, but you can see how it plays with your color palette.

I think the tile may play better with a more contemporary palette of relatively light tints of colors so there is not so much contrast.

This is something my husband and I majorly have in common: we like to gather input/info/data from many different sources when making decisions. I am really hoping that this forum can play a part in getting our design right.

Edit: Oh wow! Mood boards and example images were posted while I was typing the above. How exciting! Thank you thank you thank you!!

Many GREAT concepts can ( within reason ) come from one talented designer........on your site.

It isn't a question of more people......it is a question of the right PERSON who understands your vision.....

I see what you're saying @palimpsest

@JAN MOYER I know you strongly recommend ripping out my tile, I understand it's not pretty. I'd really like to keep it and put our limited budget elsewhere. Do you think I can make something work or is it truly hopeless as long as that tile is there?

The feel that these colors give me is what I want (photo from Jan) -

The living/dining room connects to the tile floor in the foyer and kitchen. So in that living/dining room I do really need to make sure the colors are not fighting against the tile. The upstairs bedrooms and the main floor den might provide an opportunity to bring in a few more of the fall colors? Not to the point of becoming inconsistent with the main space, but just a little "cozier." ?

^ If the main space colors are somewhat like this above, could the den and bedrooms be a little more "fall flavored"?

Trying to spread 85K over as much as you want to do is first mistake.

Life is choice.

You've set this arbitrary # based on theory.

What you spend needs to account for a REASONABLE marriage of what you want and what you are willing to pay.

"Furnish the entire house"

You own nothing? You are homeless?sans any furnishings? If so your first worry is carpet?

Makes no sense.

"we have a budget of around $85,000 and this amount will likely just barely cover furnishing the entire home, replacing carpets, and a bath-to-shower conversion, along with some smaller things like redoing the fireplace hearth and the backsplash."

It WON'T cover it.

We have no furniture Jan other than temporary folding tables, office chairs, and mattresses on frames. We sold all of our furniture along with our previous home.

We were thinking we should establish the "base" of the home first before selecting furniture, especially the flooring, which in our case is wall-to-wall carpet in the living/dining room, den, and upstairs bedrooms (and stairs.)

The current carpeting clashes very, very badly with the types of colors I want for furnishings. Also it would be much easier for the carpet installers to do their work before there is furniture in the home. In fact the installer / estimator kind of indicated it would cost more if they have to move furniture. And if we had a lot of furniture I don't know where on earth we'd put it while the installers are working.

As for budget, our quotes for the bath-to-shower are in the $14,000 - $18,000 range. We are figuring around $15,000 for carpeting but of course it depends on what we choose. We will buy secondhand furniture where we can, we often like it much better than new, but of course some things you have to buy new.

I want to be clear that budget is not the only reason we decided to keep tile. There are actually many reasons.

Like I said, I get it that it's not the greatest look. But we have other priorities to consider too in addition to look and in weighing all of the priorities the decision was clear to just keep the tile and not let prefect be the enemy of good... enough.

Thankfully for you , I'm out! : ) : )

I think whatever "white" you use, it will have to be a close tint of the tile to prevent the tile from looking either another color, or dingy. As far as the first floor goes, I don't think saturated autumnal colors and the floor will work well with each other.

I support keeping the tile as a decision, but it will mean changing your palette to work with it instead of against it. I get having to keep something as a "given" but when you have a given you can't ignore it. It's going to end up driving decisions. I get it though, you could completely change the downstairs floors, or do hardwood throughout the whole house, and use a lot of your budget just on that and all the things associated with it, like fixing or replacing a lot of the millwork. That's a version of people who buy the "perfect house" but then it's empty of furniture for the next ten years because they can't afford decent furniture.

The carpet in the living/dining room and the carpet on the stairs are both visible from the foyer, so they need to coordinate well with each other and with the tile. I think they'll end up being different carpets instead of using the same carpet for main floor and upstairs. We're very open to nylon for the main floor but really prefer wool or wool blend for the bedrooms upstairs. I'll post some photos later of other samples I have but in the meantime I'd be so interested to get opinions on what carpet looks would suit an 80s contemporary with light warm beige foyer tile. The exterior is this style:

I have Radici USA, either Abetone or Monte Carlo which are velvet cuts on my stairs and in the bedrooms in room size. We don't wear shoes upstairs, eat upstairs, and vacuum it pretty much every day. (Yes, we are both fully employed and no, don't spend all our time cleaning).

The carpet installer votes for a dense, plush nylon for the main floor (LR/DR and den.) No matter what, we will have seams in the living/dining room due to the larger dimensions of the room, and this type of carpet seams well. There are also transition points from tile to carpet and the installer would not recommend a thin carpet in that case because even with a thick pad it may not come up high enough to meet the top surface of the tile properly.

I have samples of these two below and they would be sooo comfy. Also would seem to fit with the style of my home:

Link - Finery - 100% ANSO® High Performance Nylon in Baked Beige | AndersonTuftex The images in that link do not capture what this carpet is really like. There is a motion image on that webpage that comes closer. Description: " Inspired by the richness of velvet and mohair, this solid offers a tactile depth that invites self-expression, turning color into an experience that transforms any space." I think when they say "self expression" they mean rolling around on the floor because the way this carpet feels really would make you want to do that. If you wanted to get on the floor to stretch or anything like that this would be a great carpet to have.

Link - Grand Isle Carpet Flooring | DH Floors - this one is not as thick but still comfy feeling when you press on it. The two carpets have a similar look overall. Here's the Grand Isle:

I feel like the sage one may be easier to work with than a tan neutral.

Interesting... green is my favorite color and my husband's too. I was thinking we need the tile and carpet to blend, like be close to the same color, and the tan ones blend more, but you are saying green would actually be easier to work with - for our furnishing/decorating or for mixing with the tile?

I think neutrals are hard to mix; they can interact with each other in funny ways. A green like that is an actual color, but one that goes with a lot.

Very true palimpsest.

This is another option for the main floor, Sisaltex. Quite soft to the touch. Link - Sisaltex Carpet Flooring | Masland Carpets

I ordered all samples I thought would blend with the tile...

Here is how it looks installed on stairs (but I'd be using it for LR/DR and den) -

I don't know if this style carpet goes with the contemporary style of my home. I like the look, but this thread has made me wonder what goes with my home.

Green carpet like the sample you pictured. Furniture like that in Jan's picture that you repeated--modern enough to be in keeping with your home's style, but a rustic edge. Camel or beige upholstery for the large pieces, and pillows & throws in the darker tones you love. For art, I would look for abstract paintings in your favorite tones, or large-scale landscape or nature photography.

Wow another vote for green carpet? I would enjoy it personally. I wonder if it would be even worse for resale than tan carpet though? I like the plan you laid out @mcarroll16

The green options for the Tuftex Finery:

Here's the Grand Isle one again:

I will have to order more samples now that green is becoming an option...

So in terms of style, for the main floor of my home, is that look above (kind of a plushy cut pile nylon) better than the Sisaltex (textured) look that I posted a few posts up? For a contemporary architecture home?

The plushy cut seems more modern to me. It's definitely what I remember from 80s homes, although that was a very long time ago and I was a kid, not very decor focused.

I would either go with the cut pile or a very plain berber style carpet. The plain berber may be hard to find in green tones

These are some solid-color berber style samples - Tuftex Gracious:

No green colorways are offered for that carpet. But does the style go equally well with my home compared to a dense cut pile carpet? I believe these would show seams slightly more than the plush cut pile.

Regarding carpet for the stairs and upstairs:

I personally like the stair rail a lot and I was very happy the previous owner had left it alone and not painted it. I want to find a carpet for the stairs that really complements the wood and the style of the railing, but whatever I choose also needs to work for the upstairs hall and two bedrooms. We are pretty set on wool or wool blend here. Any suggestions now that we've established a plaid probably is not going to work?

Thank you to everyone for your help by the way. I so appreciate it.

I think would use a pile rug. Or for looped look at Purrfection if you want neutral or Fetch which appears to come in several subtle greens

I said I was out........

Nothing will outlast a wool and nylon blend. The blend strengthens and also limits the shedding with wool.

You should be after 15' and no less than 13'2' broadloom- my guess in a house such as yours? At least a few rooms 12' wide - ? and automatically dictating a seam.

You might avoid seams with wider width goods.

They won't be found in Fabrica or Masland. Few if any in Tuftex, milled predominately at 12'

They will be found in Antrim, Rosecore, some Prestige...that ilk

Also...

Most 100" wool should only be vacuumed on suction, or very high beater bar. Avoid Dyson like the plague, also Electrolux. They "suck the nails from the floor", isn't a good trait in carpet.

My carpet source who does near and far high end, complicated everything for Designers NY to Fl......? uses the ancient Hoover, for this very reason.