Best carpet for a high traffic

October 27, 2012 6:54 PM

Can you recommend carpet for a high traffic sunroom in a home with dogs and young children?

Possible relevant details:

-this sunroom leads to our side yard and is very high traffic

-we live in the woods with lots of pine trees and despite frequent vacuuming the current carpet looks terrible

-the room is elevated without a foundation

-tile and wood floors aren't an option

-we have a wheat colored berber in there now which has suffered from pulls due to dog toenails, so if we go with a berber, we want a very low pile

posted by Nickel Pickle to home & garden (6 answers total)

FLOR?
posted by k8t at 7:05 PM on October 27, 2012

Tile and wood might not be, but marmoleum might be an idea - easy clean up, can stay warm in the winter, can hold up to just about the heaviest traffic situations. Other than that, FLOR tiles that can be swapped easily might be your best bet or a runner that gets replaced a couple times a year.
posted by iamabot at 7:13 PM on October 27, 2012

We have these floor mats in our living room to pad the hardwood from the kid and dogs and they are very easy to keep clean.

We're moving into a house with a sunroom that sounds exactly like what you have and I plan to use them in there, fwiw.
posted by cestmoi15 at 7:59 PM on October 27, 2012

We've had good luck with FLOR tiles intended for high-traffic areas in, um, high-traffic areas. And although we haven't replaced any yet, you can get a few spares so you can swap out the worst tiles as they wear (like if there's one "path" that is most-walked and gets the worst, get enough to replace that path).
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:05 PM on October 27, 2012

Yeah, Flor carpet tiles. I suggest the 'Housepet' line. We installed them in different areas of our home, easy to replace if one gets stained, and easy to pick up & clean. I noticed our local FedEx walk-in building is using them, too.
posted by artdrectr at 12:39 AM on October 28, 2012

I came in here to suggest FLOR too. We inherited a room with carpet tiles when we bought our house (it was the previous owners' toddler's room), and I didn't realize it wasn't normal carpet for several months. A year or so later the roof blew off on a super rainy afternoon, and water poured into this room. We were able to pull up the tiles and let the flooring below dry off, and dry the tiles. We put them back down and gave them a good vacuumn, and they're good to go. I honestly think with normal carpet we would have had to tear everything up and throw it out.
posted by Secretariat at 10:00 AM on October 28, 2012