If the room serves as the cat vomitorium, what about a vinyl floor covering?

Spicher and Co

edit: correct typo, and add that the above floor coverings are not inexpensive.

Those are really pretty. I have a feeling that the fun of barfing in that room, though, has something to do with the pile of the rug. They'd probably take it somewhere else... But I'm actually thinking about where I could use those elsewhere.

I have had good luck with the sisal-look indoor/outdoor rugs. They've worn like iron and when our dog got into something in the marsh and ... Well, anyway, we were able to take it outside and hose it off.

The downsides are they are a little boring and are not cushy on your bare feet.

If you are looking online and see one you like, order the smallest size. You will be able to see the color and texture in person without worrying about packing up a huge rug.

I have two poly rugs — one 4x6 in kitchen and one runner in bathroom — and am very pleased with the performance and how thick and plush they are.

Both have held up well to cat and human wear. ;)

DD has 3 kids, 1 dog, 1 snake, and 9 frogs. She uses polypropylene rugs from Rugs USA in the hearth room and playroom. So far (4 years) the kids and the dog have failed to permanently damage those rugs. The dog is prone to barfing and the kids are prone to any sort of mess you can imagine.

She also has a Ruggable runner in the hall from the garage. I wouldn’t have bought white, but it washes up fine.

The dog even barfed on my breakfast room seagrass rug and it survived without staining. (NOTE: that is seagrass not sisal. Seagrass is much less prone to staining than sisal.)

The snake lives in a room with a wool Kazak Oriental rug. He’s not messy. The frogs live in rooms with wall to wall carpet. They cope.

I have wool, nylon, and polypropylene area rugs. I really recommend nylon. The nylon rugs are harder to find but ours haven’t shown any wear in five years of traffic and are easy to clean. We once spilled a whole cup of coffee with creamer on a nylon rug covering wall-to-wall carpet in our office and were able to mop it up with paper towels and it never penetrated the backing.

I have an indoor/outdoor rug in my home office/craft room and I love it! IMO it doesn’t scream ”outdoor rug” at all.

This isn’t mine, but similar. The key to passing off an outdoor rug indoors is to avoid the typical outdoor themes (palm trees, etc).

https://www.wayfair.com/rugs/pdp/well-woven-medusa-manola-moroccan-trellis-indooroutdoor-black-flat-weave-rug-xtbs3119.html?piid=71791301

I've had a large polypropylene rug in my LR since 2007. Lots of foot traffic, cat barf, and once an unfortunate episode of explosive diarrhea from a large dog. It all cleaned up without a trace. It's worn like iron.

I have a Ruggable that is also easy to spot clean. I recently washed it in my top-loader, but next time I'll probably take it to the laundromat.

My cats have become so enamored with barfing on a certain area on my bedroom carpet that I've thrown a bath towel over the spot. Now they go elsewhere. That carpet needs to go. It's irredeemable.

I've shown this rug here before- bought in 2019 for our living room to use while a vintage rug was being repaired overseas. Figured it would get a few months of use and that would be that. Well, a pandemic happened and that rug saw a lot more use than I imagined. I had a good pad under it for comfort because DH likes to lie on the floor with the dog. I have an old workhorse upright vac that can't be used on fine rugs but cleaned this one beautifully. The rug is now in a guest room - everyone comments on it, it's in perfect condition, no loose threads on the binding and no pulled tufts. Color-wise, this particular rug gives you a ton of options for things to work with it. Highly recommend this polypropylene rug.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LWUELY2/ref=nav_youraccount_switchacct?ie=UTF8&th=1

So, we're just skipping by the snake?

Bbstx, about this snake--is it allowed to freely roam around on said rug? And the frogs--what do you mean they "cope" with the carpet? I'm painting a picture in my mind. How does your DD handle all this?

Sorry, Sas, but I have to ask.

A comment concerning tufted rugs with rubber backings: NEVER AGAIN! I bought one once. After about a year, maybe two, I began to get a whiff of something in the area - not ghastly, but a smell that shouldn’t have been there. I thought it was an artificial geranium so I threw that out. Still smelled something from time to time. Couldn’t figure it out and decided to ignore it.

Moved. Put the rug in the entry of the new house. One day I walked across it and noticed good sized lumps scattered across it. Thinking it was probably wads of wool fuzz, I flipped it over and made a tiny slit in the backing to get the fuzz out. Not fuzz. The rubber coating that backed the rug had deteriorated into a powder. The deteriorating backing was what I was smelling. I called the store where I bought it and they refunded my money. I was grateful for their standing behind their product, but I don’t think I will ever again buy a tufted rug with a latex coating on the back.

How about woven rather than tufted, construction wise.

esalerugs.com has some great inexpensive rugs.

@Feathers11, I was just being snarky about DD’s chosen pets. Neither the snake nor the frogs roam. The snake is in a huge terrarium with TWO combination locks in the living room. And the frogs are kept in the children’s bedrooms in a fish bowl. I think my daughter is on a quest to have every sort of pet that she was denied as a child! 😁

I love it, Bbstx! Thanks for sharing.

The reason I am asking about woven is that I don't really like tufted carpet and I have one room that is probably going to be carpeted rather than have finished floors and a room sized rug. I have room sized wool Wilton weave and stairs in Wilton weave and it was expensive. A whole room was likely to be beyond my budget. So I was looking at options and they came out like this:

Tufted synthetic commercial grade, most expensive. Wool Wilton weave second most expensive, wool tufted in third, Wilton weave synthetic in fourth, and residential tufted synthetic the least.

The carpet guy says the wilton weave in polypropylene holds up better than tufted constructions.

Thank you for that, palimpsest. I have been looking at woven, too, and was thinking it might be a good option.

Indoor outdoor is a good option, too. I am looking at some of the Dash & Alberts, but am not really wanting to spend that amount for an 8x10. I know there are cheaper, but we have a small Dash & Albert in our powder room and it has held up so well over the years, and I don't really know much about the other brands.

And I like the rug you posted, DLM2000.

bbstx - that's a beautiful snake - what kind is it? My DD was the animal lover in our house. We always had a dog or two but she had frogs, cockatiels, lizards and a snake. My DH took DD to the dentist and on the way home stopped at the local pet store for dog food. They came home with a terrarium and a corn snake and snake food (aka pinkies). He lived for 4 years and then one day just stopped eating.

As for rugs - I've had all kinds - poly, nylon, wool, hand knotted silk, braided, rag etc. We always had large dogs and to protect the hardwood floors we had poly area rugs in the foyer and main hall. Those rugs just don't wear out and can be easily cleaned. One puppy did eat the fringe off one rug but the rugs themselves are indestructible. We still have one small 2x3 rug that we have in the garage on the landing - it must be 15 years old.

I've been looking at the ruggables but have hesitated to buy one. My DS and DDIL have one in the dining room and the edges on one side have curled up. DH is unsteady on his feet and uses a cane so I'm not sure about them. They now sell one that's thicker so perhaps that would work for us.

Maire

I don't really like to assume what anybody's budget is, but the woven broadloom in polypropylene that came up as an option was still not inexpensive.

The commercial tufted broadloom I was looking at ranged from $86 a yard to $135 a yard, and from the spec's I was unclear what accounted for the $50 a yard range between the two. They seemed very similar. I was shocked at how expensive the commercial carpet is.

The Wilton weave wool broadloom I was looking at was in the $80s per yard, the polypropylene in the $70s. Still what I consider expensive, but even Home Depot and Lowes have carpet in this price range, so I don't know. I am looking in person on Friday at the carpet place to see if I can come up with something I like for less than the low end of what I have priced so far.

It may be less expensive to have the floor, which is in terrible shape under the existing carpet refinished, but then I will still need rugs anyway.

DLM, that's my rug! lol I love the rug and it does clean well with the vacuum. The two dogs shed all year long and we have 4 cats. We've had a wool persian and I'm so glad to be rid of it. Traffic areas have thick runners to protect my feet.

Plus, Safavieh is a brand I trust. I buy their indoor outdoor rugs for the porch.

Picture is two years old.

Marie_cate, the snake is a ball python. They looked at a corn snake but it was too ”lively.” The kids are 4, 7, and 7. I don’t think they could handle a lively snake. The ball python barely moves.

I have mostly poly/olefin rugs in my house and they wear like iron. They are easy to clean...you can use dilute bleach on them. They don't fade, but they will crush so you need to get them tightly woven.

Re cats...we have a *lot* of vinyl flooring in our house...but never fear. The cats will manage to run right over to the carpet before they upchuck...even if it's by an inch or so. Trying to get them to hit the easy to clean parts of the floor is darn near impossible!

We have 2 polypropylene flat weave, indoor/outdoor rugs we got when we had a long haired cat. We no longer have a cat, but still have the rugs, and they still look good. I like that I can steam mop them.

Before that I had 2 bamboo rugs which I also liked a lot, and steam mopped too.

They were this type, but different colors:

I wouldn't mind going back to the bamboo - it's so practical - easy to keep clean too.

Plus it doesn't shed fibers 🙂