The awful expense of carpets and rugs

[JoceAndChris]

I just don't see how they can be afforded! What's everyone else done?

There weren't many fitted carpets here when we moved in, the ones that were here were 20 yrs old and terrible so we drove them to the Recycling Centre. Now we have a very chilly mix of waxed bare boards and bare stone throughout.

After Vicky's post in another thread about lovely Roger Oates my carpet/rug/runner fund is starting as of today! From him I need two stair runners, 1 passageway runner, as well as 7 rugs from elsewhere in very particular colours and designs, each around 9ft by 11 ft, one fitted carpet and one sisal carpet. Because I've used so much wallpaper getting rugs to match is virtually impossible. For example, in the dining room, I've only found one pattern that I think would go, which would have to be a bespoke job as I want to leave a foot of bare board around the edge of the room.

http://www.nourison.com/Default.htm?Products=Broadloom&FORM=Gallery&coll=cosmo&style=C94F&color=941&Cat=hand&shape=BR

In the bedroom I'd like an Aubusson like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8X10-Aubusson-Area-Rug-PINK-Roses-LIGHT-BLUE-Background-Wool-French-Pastel-2600-/261074039962

which I think is going to mean pulling the wallpaper off the walls

The whole experience is making me think you should maybe start the decorative scheme with the carpet.

Are other people living with bare floors, and how are you finding them?

 

[CliffordPope]

Secondhand traditional carpets are cheap - everybody wants plain fitted carpets now.

 

[JoceAndChris]

But they don't go with flowery wallpaper :?

 

[Juju]

I know what you mean about cost! I bought a lot of rugs for my previous house - I hate fitted carpet so ripped out all the carpets there and have removed a few from this house. I've got my beady eye on ripping out some more too but I'm banned by Mr Juju from starting any new jobs till the old ones are actually finished...
I love the Roger Oates rugs and runners. I bought quite plain and cheap rugs for the old house (from Cotswold Company - basically sisal with a cotton border) and they're ok but I would like something more interesting here. We got a nice rug for our hall from John Lewis.

Juju

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Can you get some samples of your favourite carpets Joce, and make slippers out of them?

You'd need a pair of slippers for each room, but I think it would get around the alternative exhorbitant cost of carpetting the whole room.

Just a thought... 8)

In our own little slice of heaven, I've made the customary galcial progress since last posting here. We are now poorer to the tune of an Aga which arrives in two weeks, and richer to the tune of our eigth calf being born unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. She has been christened Ceffyl by the boys*.

*This will only be funny to those of you with a working knowledge of welsh farm animals :wink:

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

Nice to see you back here Robin, and we do need pics of the Aga, when it comes, and the lovely calf.

Slippers- grr- you boys just don't get it!

 

[JoceAndChris]

I know what you mean about cost! I bought a lot of rugs for my previous house - I hate fitted carpet so ripped out all the carpets there and have removed a few from this house. I've got my beady eye on ripping out some more too but I'm banned by Mr Juju from starting any new jobs till the old ones are actually finished...
I love the Roger Oates rugs and runners. I bought quite plain and cheap rugs for the old house (from Cotswold Company - basically sisal with a cotton border) and they're ok but I would like something more interesting here. We got a nice rug for our hall from John Lewis.

Juju

Mr Juju is right- don't do it!! Looked at the Cotswold Company, same problem there as I have with the cheap rugs I've bought - way way too small and you're left with gales blowing up through most of the floor space.

£1500 -£2000 per room would sort me out with bespoke solutions, but overall that's around £20,000

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Is dear Mr Penners still posting, or has Matron finally subdued him?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Dear Mr Penners is still posting, when he isn't napping :wink:

 

[plasticpigeon]

Anything good is expensive. I think that with most of these decisions, if you look for long enough you will converge on a price/quality compromise that is acceptable.

 

[Nigel Watts]

To decide what might work with your colours I would suggest a trip to Liberty's carpet department, and then it might be worth having a look at carpets coming up at auction. This one for example has an estimate of £600 - £900:

which, assuming it goes for that, strikes me as a lot of carpet for the money.

 

[Penners]

Is dear Mr Penners still posting, or has Matron finally subdued him?

Eh.... uh... what? Is it time for a snifter? If not, then why have I been woken?

Hello, FW, where the hell have you been? It won't do, y'know, just wandering off like that.

By the way, welcome back!

 

[Penners]

Joce - if I know anything about you, it's that you want what's best and right for your house, regardless of cost. And you're prepared to wait and save to get it.

So my suggestion would be to buy a few dirt-cheap rugs in the short-term, sufficient to lay over your least comfortable areas of floor. Don't worry too much about aesthetics, just get your toes warm! Then you can start to fill up that coffee tin* marked "rug fund", until you've got enough to afford your first perfect rug.

*On second thoughts, perhaps a 50-gallon oil drum might be more appropriate!

 

[vicky whitworth]

Isn't the rug fund a two bedroomed house in Leeds?
I agree with Penners. Save up to get what you want. The right thing makes all the difference. Auctions are good for rugs because actually not that many people like them.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Vicky -Chris informs me that the Leeds house will not be spent on fripperies like carpets, he wants to pay off his debts and mortgage

Dear Mr P, what a lovely kind post. It is just as you say- champagne taste and lemonade budget again! I have got a few cheap rugs scattered about but woefully small amounts of the floor are covered. The egg I gave my kittens last night actually froze on the kitchen floor. The bare boards of the bathroom are so icy, with the breezes blowing up from the North, I'm unable to shower in there at the moment.

Nigel, is that auction at Bonhams? Auctions really do seem a great way to get stuff more cheaply. New prices seem to be £1500-2000 per rug for 11ft by 9, and I'd actually rather they were faded and old.

Looked at lots of patterned rugs in Liberty and elsewhere, and I still can't get my head round putting Indian or Arabic designs with the damask wallpapers or the Print Room. I just think the rooms are too small to pull it off. If only I could borrow an 11ft by 9 in reds and blues for the dining room to see how it would work!

I think Mr P is probably right and I should try to get hold of a load of second hand rugs or any old cheap rugs in great warming heaps.

 

[Owain]

Can you buy an acceptable modern carpet by the metre and get it edged? Probably wouldn't have the fringing etc (unless you spent more). Markets etc sometimes have someone who edges carpet offcuts and sells them on as rugs.

 

[Flyfisher]

You can certainly get modern carpets edged. We once had some fitted carpet offcuts made into mats by having the edges all sewn up. It was a couple of houses ago though so I don't remember how much it cost, but it must have been reasonable or we wouldn't have had it done. Very neat job though.
Any decent carpet shop would probably be able to tell you more.

 

[vicky whitworth]

Doesn't Chris feel the cold too? Rugs are not fripperies and the whole point of a mortgage is well, it's a mortgage.

What about trying Axminster carpets? Sadly they went into administration a few weeks ago which is pretty devastating in Axminster where 400 jobs may go but maybe they are doing special carpetey deals. Most of what they make these days scares me but there is some OK stuff.

Your house does sound really cold if an egg can freeze inside. Those poor kitties with their cold little tooties.

 

[Flyfisher]

Vicky -Chris informs me that the Leeds house will not be spent on fripperies like carpets, he wants to pay off his debts and mortgage

Sounds like a sensible chap. No need to cry, Joce, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much will be saved by not having such high (or any?) monthly interest payments to make . . . savings that can be spent on, er, rugs for example. :wink:

Alternatively, how about buying a small place somewhere hot for over-wintering? Might even work out cheaper than trying to keep warm in the UK! :lol:
Must be some bargains in Greece these days. :wink:

 

[Nigel Watts]

putting Indian or Arabic designs with the damask wallpapers

I bought two Persian rugs from Liberty's for my wife's bathroom, which I think work OK (the photos, taken under artificially yellow light doesn't really capture it, but give some idea):

Most good rug dealers will let you try the rug in situ before buying it. Liberty's offered to do this for me for these.