You Can Choose Just Any Color for Your Carpet Dyeing Project. Unless...

The next time you walk into someone's house for the first time, try to notice what draws your eyes first. More often than not, it'll be the floors of the house. The floors are the largest single surface, they are the same color, and the effect can be powerful. If you're looking to make a great impression on anyone who visits, it's the floors you should pay attention to first. This doesn't mean that if your carpeting is faded or stained or otherwise old looking, your only option now is to look up the numbers of carpeting installers. You really could try an economical option here - you could try carpet dyeing instead.

How do you know when is the right time to think of carpet dyeing? Perhaps it would make more sense to replace instead of dye - how do you know which is the better option?

If you have high-quality carpeting, and if it isn't more than 12 years old or so, your carpet's really all there still. If it looks faded or unimpressive at this point, it's just a superficial thing. Materially, your carpet’s completely adequate completely serviceable.

Sometimes, the problem isn't so much a general fading or discoloration as it is stains that won't come out. A couple of unfortunate accidents with the dog or kids and liquids could easily put unsightly patches on your carpet that are impossible to completely remove. In circumstances such as these, all you would need to do would be to call in a carpet dyeing crew and color your entire carpet something dark that with camouflage all the stains. For very little outlay, you would have a carpet that looked brand-new.

You can expect to save quite a bit - by all accounts, carpet dyeing will only set you back about a quarter what it would if you bought. When you call in the crew, they come in completely trained not just in the actual carpet dyeing jobs they are hired for, but also in color coordination. They'll know how to pick the exact right color that would work not just for your carpet but also for your home.

A dyeing crew usually also offers you expertise in judging a carpet for suitability for dyeing. For a carpet that appears to their professional eye to be in need of re-stretching or pile repair, they'll ask you to fix that first before any dyeing is done.

There is a reason why carpet dyeing professionals are this particular about these things. They know that when you die your carpet, people coming in are going to think you got new carpeting. If they see any signs of aging there, right away, they’ll know what you did. That would be embarrassing. The main thing in carpet dyeing is to do the job that is undetectable.

Not every type of color will work for every carpet. And it isn't just about what goes well with your decor. Often, the color you choose to dye your carpet comes down to the kind of spots and stains you have there. Often, whether you like it or not, you'll need to pick something that is able to completely cover over and camouflage every problem.

They Make Such Good Outdoor Carpets These Days. You Owe It to Yourself to Take a Look

You can't walk on grass with your shoes and socks on and actually feel how great it is. Carpets are intended for the feet, too. You're supposed to be able to get out of bed and just plant your feet right on the floor without giving you a jolt for how cold it is. People don't just use carpeting for the way it looks. It's also for how great it feels to walk on. Well, your outdoor areas - your porch, your balcony or your patio - would really benefit from a little softness too. If you find yourself agreeing, then outdoor carpet is for you.

There's a reason that the whole outdoor carpet idea hasn't caught on that well. The first kinds that came out were made to emulate a grassy look. For this, they made the unfortunate decision to use a tough sharp edged plastic. They would use this plastic tape to weave in and out of the carpet base. When you walk on it, it was like walking on a bed of thorns. It took them a few years to realize that this wasn't what people were looking for. By then though, the damage was done. People began to associate outdoor carpet with this kind of thing.

These days though, they've come up with all kinds of options that are both beautiful and easy on the feet. You really could look at the outdoor carpet department at your local furnishings store.

Perhaps the best kind of carpet to choose for your outdoors would have to come from the indoor outdoor carpet section. As you might guess by the name, this is carpeting that they intend for you to use anywhere around your house - regardless of whether it's indoors or outdoors. For the most part, carpeting of this kind does best in outdoor places that have some kind of shelter - a porch for instance.

If you're looking for indoor carpeting to use in hallway or other high-traffic places in your house, you could do a lot worse than indoor outdoor carpeting. Basements are another indoor area where outdoor carpet would really shine. It is going to last you forever because it's built for the outdoors. It's built to take a certain amount of moisture.

Of course, you certainly can consider using outdoor carpet in places around your property that are completely exposed and have no shelter whatsoever. They make carpeting of this kind with olefin or polypropylene. Carpeting made of materials like these tend to be quite tough. They don't absorb moisture, they don't grow mildew and they can be very low maintenance.

You've heard of polypropylene and olefin before of course - it's the same material used in the crude green fake grass outdoor carpeting they made before. But they've learned their lesson. Even with the same materials, they make soft, tufted stuff now for the outdoors.

Buying Carpet Padding - the Stuff That Really Makes Your Carpet As Nice As It Feels

Carpeting has this way of making home feel more comfy. Furniture curtains or wallpaper don't really have that kind of effect on us. When we look at a carpeted house and feel this way, usually, we think it's the carpeting. In truth though, the carpet padding that goes underneath contributes a lot to the way you feel as well.

Not only does carpet padding make carpeting feel more cushy than it really is, it can make your floors feel more even and more quiet. As much as you might luxuriate in the deep richness of it all, that's not really why they first invented carpet padding. It wasn't a comfort thing at all at first.

Back when padding first came to carpeting, the designers merely intended for it to be something that could help carpeting last longer. When carpeting is used against a bare floor, there's just too much wear to the underside of the carpet for it to last even a couple of years. Over time though, people began to realize that they liked carpet padding just for the soft springiness they got each time they stood on their carpet.

Now carpet padding should really be a pretty straightforward thing - it's just padding for your carpet. Why do you need dozens of kinds of choices?

The manufacturers have made your decision for you here though. They seem to believe that you really can't do without a range of choices in how thick your padding is, how soft, what material you use and what ways you use to install it. What should be a simple thing, as always, is overcomplicated by manufacturers trying to set their product apart.

So what we need now is one more buying guide - this one for carpet padding. Let's look over all the basics quickly so that you'll know what to look for when you arrive at the home improvement store.

The most important thing to look for in carpet padding is how dense the padding is - not how thick. When you get carpeting for the hallway that sees a lot of traffic, you want really dense padding. You want dense and thin padding. Basically, a lot of up and down travel isn't good for your carpet. It causes it to unravel. Thin and dense padding will make sure that the carpet doesn't ravel much. In places like your bedroom that don't see much traffic, you can go for just about anything - half-inch carpet padding that's not very dense will do. It'll be nice and soft (and you'll be ready for anything).

There are all kinds of materials they let you buy for your carpet padding. You get rubber, polyurethane, felt and, the most common kind - rebond.

Rebond is a great choice, but it isn't the cheapest. Polyurethane is not as long-lasting as the other kinds, and it can be expensive. But it's very easy to install and it can provide your carpeting with strong padding. If you're looking for really soft stuff, rubber and felt fiber aren't really what you should choose. They don't do really well that way. But they are easy to apply.

Make sure that you never use old and used carpet padding for new carpeting. And do keep in mind that it isn't easy to do a great job with padding. Pay a lot of attention to getting a qualified installer.

The Best Carpet Cleaning Method For...

When you decide to put heavy fluffy fabric that weighs a couple of hundred pounds on your floor and walk all over it all day, you're going to have to pay the price for that luxury by dealing with all the cleaning challenges that come up. And do they ever come up! If you're looking for the best carpet cleaning method for this, that or the other kind of stain, read on.

Yes, mud, pee, beer - all these things are likely to get on your carpet, and these can be a challenge. But these aren't half the challenge the real stains are. What do you do when someone decides to drip candle wax on your carpet? Or if they drop warm and soft chocolate on it? How about blood, or butter or chewing gum?

Those are the real challenges. Especially when they decide to step on the chewing gum after they drop it.

Let's get with them one by one. Candle wax isn't as hard a problem as it might seem at first. You mustn't ever try to scratch it off with your nails or something. You will only work the material deeper in. Instead, try to remember how when wax is cold, it really hardens and becomes difficult to break off. That's the kind of thing you're looking for. How do you get a wax drip on your carpet to get cold and hard like that?

Well, you could bring an ice cube in and really apply it there for a while. When the wax drip gets really cold, gently scrape it off. It should probably break right off.

Butter is much easier. Butter’s easy because it's fat, and there are all kinds of detergents and other cleaning agents that can dissolve fat. So what is the right kind of cleaning agent to use? The best carpet cleaning method for butter is to use dry cleaning fluid. Clean up as much of the butter as you can with a tissue and to the mess that you see remaining, apply dry-cleaning fluid repeatedly. Mop it up with a wet rag and run a vacuum cleaner over it to dry up. That should take care of it.

Chewing gum is a problem. There's no really good method for chewing gum. Most people don't realize this, but manufacturers make specialized heavy-duty equipment just for chewing gum removal. In public places like shopping malls and movie theaters, chewing gum removal is a real problem that needs dedicated equipment. This equipment injects superheated steam on chewing gum so that it just melts the stuff up.

At home, your best bet is to freeze it. Once again, bring out the ice cubes. Freeze it and harden it as much as possible and just try to take it off. Most of the time, this is the best carpet cleaning method for it.

What Kind of Special Considerations Do You Need to Allow for with Your Basement Carpet

Your basement doesn't have to be some kind of an afterthought. While that part of the house used to be a place for junk and fights between parents who wouldn't want the children to know, it is, these days, seen as a space to create a stylish, modern and happy den for the family. One of the first things people do to really design their basement to convincingly enough look like a nice warm place to go to, is usually carpeting. They can't quite figure out what makes for a good basement carpet though. Is it the same thing as anywhere else in house?

The thing is, a basement is not like any other room in the house. It's right down there in very close contact with the earth below. There's a reason why people think of the basement as a cold, damp place. The moisture there can be a problem. You don't want to put any carpeting in there until you're completely sure that there isn't a single spot of moisture anywhere. Unless you're willing to spend money on high quality basement waterproofing, you really shouldn't bother with any basement carpet.

It isn't just about leakages causing dampness. Even basements that don't have any of these problems can still be bad for carpeting. May be you have waterproof concrete walls protecting your basement everywhere. Even so, you can only be sure that there won't be any actual damp coming in. High levels of moisture in the air itself is a completely different matter. It's water vapor in the air – humidity. Concrete can't do anything about that.

To your basement carpet, it's almost the same thing. It won't take well to high levels of humidity.

But let's assume for the sake of this article that you have managed to really keep a totally dry basement. How exactly do you go about installing basement carpet? What is the best kind of carpet for such a space?

Even if you have done everything in your power to dry out your basement, you still should give your carpeting an extra line of defense. And that would be to install an exhaust fan that draws in air from outside. If the air in your basement is constantly freshened with dry supply from outside, there is virtually no chance that humidity could build up in there. Also, install an air circulator in your basement. You want the air in there to keep moving.

Once you actually get down to installing your basement carpet, ask for carpet padding that has had antimicrobial treatment done to it. Once you've done everything necessary, you'll find that you don't really need any special installation techniques just because it's the basement you are installing your carpeting in.

You might want to consider a low pile carpet if you intend for your basement to be a fun family gathering place. Such a place is likely to see many spills and stains. You'll be a lot happier removing them from low pile carpeting.