by Ken Reetz

Created on: June 14, 2008   Last Updated: June 18, 2008

Residential carpet is all about comfort, quiet, and beauty. The home is a place where you seek refuge after a hard day's work; you want to kick off your shoes, flop on the couch, and dig your toes into a nice plush carpet. And you want to run barefoot across a warm, cushy carpet on your way from the shower into bed.

That nice soft feeling under foot is important to your comfort, but it is also important to the quietness of your home. Carpet absorbs sound and helps to minimize or eliminate the echo effect; it is a valuable acoustic feature.

There are many styles of residential carpet that will provide the benefits already mentioned, so your choice of which style to choose will be more a dcor issue. Beauty is subjective, there are no guidelines to the right look make it your look and color. Keep in mind, however, that as a practical matter you should match your color choice to the expected wear and tear of your household and your particular outdoor environment. It doesn't make any sense to choose a white plush carpet if you live on a farm with four kids and three dogs running in and out all day, you couldn't keep up with the carpet cleaning.

Carpet cleaning should be done before the carpet looks like it needs it. The most important element to keeping the carpet clean is the regular vacuuming, don't let dirt and soil build up, because it damages the surface of the yarn and makes it more difficult to recover its original beauty. Carpet cleaning is best left to the professional; it's important to control the proper mix and amount of cleaning solutions and water, and most of all the thorough extraction of both. Regular vacuuming and quality carpet cleaning will add years of useful life to your carpet investment.

You should expect to pay anywhere between $25 and $35 per s/yd for a decent residential carpet, installation and padding included. You can't always tell quality by how thick a carpet feels the twist in the individual yarn, the type of fiber, and the overall density will all play a part into judging quality and determining the best buy. Hop on your computer and follow this link to the Carpet & Rug Institute web site for a quick education that will help you balance price and quality: http://www.carpet-rug.org

Commercial carpet is made to withstand a lot of foot traffic without looking worn out, and that requires choosing the proper carpet specification for its intended use. An airport will use a different criteria than would a small private office and it's important

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