Guide · For the trade
Living room carpet: what to specify for wall-to-wall in the main room
Living room carpet should be wool or a wool-nylon blend in a dense low cut pile, a loop or a Wilton pattern, 3/8 to 1/2 inch pile height, over a 7/16-inch 8-pound rebond pad for cut pile or a 3/8-inch dense felt pad for loop and Wilton, cut from 12 ft, 13 ft 2 in or 15 ft broadloom with the seams run away from the window. That spec takes a family's traffic for fifteen years. When the client means an 8x10 or a 9x12 rug rather than wall-to-wall, the large living room rugs guide and the living room rug size guide are the pages to use.
This guide is for the designer putting wall-to-wall carpet into a living room, family room or great room and the junior writing the spec: when it is the right answer, fiber, construction, pile height, pattern and color, pad, seams and quantity and what to tell the installer. The wall-to-wall carpet guide covers the whole house; this one is the living room.
When wall-to-wall is the right answer in a living room
Four cases. The room is a media or family room where the floor is sat on and acoustics matter; carpet cuts reverberation more than any rug. The carpet runs continuously from a hall or a sunken living room where a change of floor at the threshold would look wrong. The room is large enough, 16 by 20 feet and more, that a rug of the right size would be a 12x18 custom anyway. Or the subfloor is uneven or cold and carpet over a pad solves it without a new floor. Where the living room is formal or opens to a hard-floored kitchen or dining room, a rug on the hard floor is the better call and a bound broadloom rug gives the same carpet in a loose piece.
Fiber: wool, wool blend or nylon
Wool is the living room fiber: resilient, naturally flame resistant and self-extinguishing, releases most stains and holds color without the sheen synthetics carry under a window. An 80 percent wool, 20 percent nylon blend is what most of our mills use for Wilton and Axminster patterns, because the nylon holds a crisp line. Solution-dyed nylon is the answer for a pale carpet in a house with children and a dog, or when the budget rules wool out; it is bleach-cleanable and wears for decades. Polyester crushes in a walking lane within three years; keep it out of a living room. Of the roughly 3,700 broadloom styles through Interiors, about 1,400 are wool and 670 wool blends, from Prestige Mills, Couristan, Emery Park, Masland and Stanton.
Construction and pile height
| Construction | Pile height | Look | Living room use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dense cut pile (velvet or plush) | 3/8 to 1/2 in | Smooth, solid, formal | Formal living rooms; shows footprints and vacuum marks, which some clients like and some do not |
| Textured cut pile | 1/2 to 5/8 in | Softly mottled solid | Family rooms; hides tracks, soft to sit on |
| Level loop and Berber | 1/4 to 3/8 in | Tailored, flat | Great rooms with heavy traffic; the hardest-wearing option |
| Cut-and-loop pattern | 3/8 to 1/2 in | Pattern in relief | Media rooms; hides everything, reads as texture |
| Wilton and Axminster woven pattern | 1/4 to 3/8 in | Woven-in pattern, crisp | Living rooms where the carpet is the design; stripes, plaids, geometrics, Persian patterns |
| Hand-loomed wool | 3/8 to 5/8 in | Hand-made texture, loop or cut | Quiet contemporary rooms; 15 ft widths reduce seams |
Keep the pile under 5/8 inch in a living room; above that, chair legs sink and the carpet reads as a bedroom carpet. Density matters more than height: face weight (ounces per square yard) and pile density tell you more about wear than pile height and the broadloom carpet guide explains how to read them.
Pattern, texture and color for the main room
A plain or heathered solid is the safe choice and the one most of our living room specs land on, in a mid-value warm grey, oatmeal, camel or soft green rather than a pale cream, which shows a traffic lane from the door to the sofa within months. Texture, a loop-and-cut or a hand-loomed ribbed wool, gives interest without pattern and hides soil. Small-scale Wilton patterns, a 2 to 6 inch repeat, are the easiest to live with because furniture can sit anywhere on them; large-scale patterns need the furniture plan drawn on the repeat before the order. Stripes run the length of the room and set the seam direction.
Pad, seams and quantity
Under a cut pile, 7/16-inch 8-pound rebond; under a loop, Berber, Wilton or Axminster, a dense 3/8-inch felt or a 32-ounce synthetic felt, so the backing does not flex and the loops do not pull. A living room is usually wider than the 12 ft or 13 ft 2 in roll, so there will be a seam and it runs with the long dimension of the room and the main light, never across the line of sight from the entry; in a 15 by 20 room a 15 ft width from a hand-loomed or Antrim line removes the seam altogether. Quantity is the room's length plus 3 to 6 inches per drop, plus a pattern repeat on each cut for a patterned carpet: a 16 by 20 living room in a 12 ft solid takes two drops of 20 ft 6 in, about 55 square yards. The carpet yardage guide works it through.
What to tell the installer
- Seam placement, drawn on the plan before the carpet is cut: with the light, under furniture where possible, never in the center of the room.
- Pad type and thickness by name; a loop or woven carpet goes over felt, not rebond.
- Pattern match on every seam, with the repeat allowance in the order, centered on the room or the fireplace.
- Power stretch, not knee-kick; a living room is where a loose carpet ripples first.
- A flush or Z-bar transition to the adjacent hard floor, specified by name and pile direction toward the main entry so the color reads darkest from the doorway.
Questions designers ask
What is the best carpet for a living room?
A dense wool or 80/20 wool-nylon, 3/8 to 1/2 inch pile, in a textured cut pile, a loop or a small-scale Wilton pattern, in a mid-value color. It wears, it is flame resistant, it cleans and it reads as quality from the door. Solution-dyed nylon is the alternative for pale colors in hard-use rooms.
Is wall-to-wall carpet a good idea in a living room?
Yes in family rooms, media rooms, large rooms and houses where the carpet runs through; a rug on a hard floor is better in formal rooms that open to a kitchen. Many projects do both: wall-to-wall in the family room, a bound rug of the same broadloom in the living room.
How is a living room carpet 8x10 different from wall-to-wall?
An 8x10 is an area rug and in a living room it is the minimum size that puts the sofa's and chairs' front legs on it; a 9x12 suits most rooms. Wall-to-wall is cut from 12 to 15 ft broadloom and stretched over pad. Any wool broadloom in the catalog can be cut and bound to 8x10 or any other size in 3 to 5 weeks.
What color carpet is best for a living room?
Mid-value and warm: greige, oatmeal, camel, soft grey, muted green. Pale cream shows the walking lane; dark charcoal shows lint. A heathered yarn hides more than a solid of the same color.
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