No wall-to-wall carpet with pets!

Install LVT that is waterproof where any pet accidents can be wiped up. There is no way to clean a pet stain once it goes through the carpet and into the pad.

If you don't want to pay for vinyl flooring, which will be less expensive than wall-to-wall carpet, then paint the floors.

What area are you looking to change carpet? Honestly, you’ll do far better putting down vinyl or laminate plank flooring and use rugs where makes sense. Carpet is a collector of odors, dust and dirt and should be avoided where pets frequent.

No carpet always abetter choice Waht is the flooring in the rest of the house ? LVP or LVT both much better thanwall to wall carpet always .

Which of these colors looks better with your furniture and wall color - unless you're planning on repainting? When you say white there are dozens of different whites. If you really want gray is there another brand you could choose from that might not be the same shade of gray? How about a medium instead of dark tone?

On my monitor, I can't tell the difference between the two you have shown.

Why are those the only two options?

@palimpsestLooking back at the photos, they do look very similar in my post.

Here is a picture of them side by side.

We narrowed down to these two based on feel, family design agreement :), and stain testing.

@kandrewspa The walls are Benjamin Moore White Dove. The carpet is only in kid and guest room, back stairs (not main) and bonus room. Furniture as such is mixed.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting I completely understand that carpet is not preferred, but it is what we have decided on for these handful of rooms. The rest of our house is white oak.

We prefer the dark not just for the potential pet mishap, but the largest section of carpet will be in a bonus/movie room where spills could happen.

@jackowskib I completely understand that carpet is not preferred, but it is what we have decided on for these handful of rooms.

Carpet will be replaced in kid rooms, guest room, back stairs (not main) and bonus room.

We prefer the dark not just for the potential pet mishap, but the largest section of carpet will be in a bonus/movie room where spills could happen.

I would not recommend carpet in this situation. you will be better off in the long run with wood or tile. spills and pet stains will ruin the carpet and you will just have to replace it again. If cost is a constraint, even LVP would be better.

The variation in color seems very active for these. Is there something in their Lifeguard-Pet-Friendly category at the same price point that isn't so speckled?

I am not a fan of carpet but we did a soft sage green carpet in our basement with a thick under cushion. We had dogs and kids and it was a great surface at the time. Wood would have been better but at the time I was thinking this would be the space for sleepovers and we wanted a floor that was soft for kids to crawl on. My dogs never had accidents on the rug. And we didn't have any stains but carpet is never my first choice.

What are the other colors in the space? Based on your last photo the carpet on the right seems a bit more brown and that may hide some pet poo stains better. But hopefully your dogs are well trained and your new carpet will never have issues.

A great chart from the Spruce that might help others reading your thread figure out what they want to do with their own space. Each options has pros and cons.

^ agree that something with a less variation would be less bossy - can you share any other contenders?

CARPET TILE OUTLET

You could select carpet tile instead. That way if a pet has an accident you can change out the tile or take the tile to the laundry room and hose it down.

Have you ever pulled up carpet? Specially carpet in a house with kids and pets? I did once, and swore I would never live with wall to wall carpet!

@Jennifer Hogan This is really helpful and thank you for calling out that we've just each got to do, what we've got to do. :)

I'm so torn because we need to use Shaw - we currently have their carpet and it stained, but is under warranty, so they will replace with another Shaw carpet. This time we are trying for something different and are going darker, but with kids and dogs some messes are inevitable. As such, we want something that will clean up the best and not show any remnants of stains. I've tested both these colors and mustard completely disappears. I cannot say the same for some of Shaw's other carpets that are lighter. Although maybe I'm missing a good option?!

One recommendation our builder/designer gave us is to look at the carpet with the sample laying flat on the ground vs. just holding it up and looking at it closeup. When it's on your floor, and you're looking at it from an angle at a further distance which is how you'll see it when walking into the room. The colors look different - in our case it looked lighter as the lighter threads in the carpet reflected the light a bit more. That helped us quickly pick from the 2 we were looking at.

@chispa Yes, I have and I completely understand the down sides of wall to wall carpet. That said, we are currently replacing carpet that is only 2.5 years old (due to manufacturer defect), the carpet is regularly professionally washed and is limited to bedrooms and bonus room. We are also a no shoe house (yes, I know dogs can't match this!). We are doing the best we can while still having carpet.

I get why people are so against it but for many reasons we have chosen carpet for these rooms. Just hoping for suggestions on color given we are going to put carpet down.

The brown would be my choice. I like the melange appearance and I can see it with wall painted in B.M. Gray Owl

As for the nay sayers, the pad is so very important under carpet. My experience has been with Smart Step, but there are other brands. Point is the top layer is waterproof so that liquid spilled never gets into the padding. That's what holds the stain and odor. My carpet layer even duct taped the seams.

I bought the best stain cleaning machine. I found it on one of the decorating blogs. It is amazing. Not a steam cleaner. Put the recommended amount of the liquid cleanser into the tank, turn it on, spray (on handle), brush it in and then re angle the nozzle and the vacuum sucks up the water (dirty) and goes into the other container. Easy to clean and small enough to find a storage spot. I could be Bissell's spokesperson.

So with the waterproof top on the pad and something like this cleaner...even the pup will be happy.

A spill guard pad is a necessity, DUCT tape to seams is de rigeur, no reliable installer would skip this step.

Brutal truth? I would not do it. The built in obsolescence is undeniable. Dark colors may hide a spill, they do not hide anything else, and every speck of lint, dust, dog hair, sock fuzz will show.

A very generous area rug on a hard floor is a much better long term value, even an area rug in a Shaw broadloom cut and bound to size, over a hard floor if you choose.

You don't walk or relax, on the perimeter 12/15/18 inches of any room.

There is no faster carpet KILLER than bare feet. !!

Your feet deposit the oil residue, the oils attract and hold the soil. The result is matting and traffic pattern soil, and it is WHY a bedroom and its closets will soil faster than any other room in your home.. The same oil is left behind by the coat on the family dogs, and the same ground in soil results. Don't believe it? Ask the carpet source.

Your original question was which is more "modern that will go with our styling?"

Given that I'm not really sure what you mean by "modern," both are equally of the same style, and are so close in color that I don't think I'd prefer one over the other.

As to someone's comment that the carpet is "busy": when you look at it from 4-5 feet you're not going to really perceive a speckled or busy look, rather a muted overall color.

As for your "styling," other than "transitional" we have no idea of this since you haven't posted any photos of the rooms or the style of your home. It's really the colors of your furnishings rather than the style that would dictate which of the two works better.

Can you show us what's in the room now?

I agree^^^ and I would be focusing on just how dark is too dark. Do you have good natural light and lamps at night? Those dark carpets really change the mood/vibe vs something more medium to light toned. No one would suggest white but there are shades half way between that and what you are looking at.

I agree that wall to wall carpeting lost favor and market share over the past few decades.

From 1950-1990 it was the norm, then the dotcom era hit and easy to clean, hard surface flooring became the star. That said, carpeting is probably more popular than most designers believe. It is still easier on the pocket than most other flooring and has maintained over 40% of the flooring industry market volume.

I have also noticed that while my nieces and nephews in their 40s want nothing to do with wall to wall carpet, the 20-30 range are more open to it.

Saw this on reddit recently . . .

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeDecorating/comments/19e5u52/will_walltowall_carpeting_ever_be_a_popular/?rdt=44031

Comments are pretty interesting. People are not so grossed out by carpet - that was 1990,

House Beautiful and Better Homes and Gardens also have articles in the past year talking about carpet making a comeback. . .

https://www.bhg.com/wall-to-wall-carpet-new-color-trend-7562968

https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/carpet-trends-206835

I don't think we will ever see the carpet covering every square inch of a home like we did in the 70s when they carpeted bathrooms and kitchens, but I don't think wall to wall ever truly disappeared for the non-interior design crowd and I don't think it will remain such a taboo decision in the future.

I’ve read most of the comments and understand that carpet is a good choice for you. I definitely like the brown tones better. The black, IMO, is too harsh and cold. Looks like a nice comfy carpet!

I agree to a degree with @Jennifer Hogan

But here a lot has happened in even just the last ten years.....

LVP explosion to better quality, better selection and for many very practical good looks! A huge factor,even in new build.

The broadloom industry on whole: The wool and wool blend luxury fibers are actually a better value than so many of even the luxury nylons. Many of the twists, cut pile in even a Fabrica, or Masland etc are overpriced when compared with wool counterparts that will take dye so much better. Afford so much more textural interest,

The other factor? So many glorious wool are actually designed to be created as area rugs-simply a way for the industry to survive and they responded with goods in 15 even 16' widths !

As to the 40%.....who still wants wall to wall and who does not want it? I would have to guess that 40% encompasses a lot of production tract build, where you still will have wall to wall in a second floor.

I have seen a lot of variation in what I have found with removing carpet, even in the house I live in now.

My house has hardwood floors, some of which had apparently sustained a lot of surface damage, so when the house was put on the market, the top two floors were carpeted and the main floor was uncovered hardwood.

No one lived in the house between when it was carpeted and I bought it, and then I rented it out for two years to three women.

Two of the women each had a bedroom on the second floor and the third tenant had the third floor to herself. When I moved in we cleaned the carpets. The first two floors were pretty filthy. (There was actually a photo on FB of one of the women passed out on the stairs after she had vomited, that stain never really came out). So when we pulled up the carpet on the stairs, of course the floor and pad had a lot of dirt on it that had filtered through the probably never vacuumed rug. One bedroom, the carpet padding was stained and lots of dirt. One bedroom, not so bad. Top floor the carpet was clean and it's still there, we haven't gotten to removing it yet, But I have pulled it up from the tackless, and the padding is clean and the floor underneath is clean. So one women was a slob, one was maybe average, and one was pretty tidy.

I have room size broadloom in two rooms, one for about 7 or 8 years, one a little newer, and really it does not get treated any differently than I would treat wall to wall, I mean you don't pick it up and shake it or clean the floor underneath, it's too big. But it looks brand new, there's no stains or dirt on the padding, the floor underneath the padding is completely clean. The carpet in those two rooms looks brand new. So maybe the people who pulled up filthy carpet, maybe the house just wasn't kept very clean? The wood floors in my house after the tenants moved out were filthy too, it just didn't show as much. The dirt was still there.

We have one pet, we don't have kids, we don't eat in the bedrooms, although we do drink things in there, we don't wear shoes upstairs. So all those things help. One of us vacuums the main bedroom or the carpeted steps every day. That might be a little obsessive, but we are also both fully employed, it's not like we have nothing better to do. If it takes a total of ten minutes I would be shocked.

I know with kids and some pets there would be more maintenance and more chances of spills. But not everybody who has carpet is someone who has no standards of cleanliness and is someone who doesn't mind walking around on a disgusting petri dish full of dirt, stains, and smells, which is what the anti-carpet squad usually tries to imply.

Some people are cleaner than others and can maintain carpet, maybe the people with dirty carpet just aren't clean enough.