Carpets are the cosmetic polish of a home; adding a splash of colour, elegance, a touch of texturing and cosiness to any room. Carpets not only look good, adding visual warmth, sometimes they can help your central heating in winter, providing a barrier between the warmed air and a heat-absorbing concrete or hard wooden floor.

Carpets tend to run from wall to wall and are often fixed into place by carpet layers who carefully cut the carpet to precisely fit your home. However, rugs – large squares of carpeting, neatly bound and finished at the edges – can also give your home the benefits of a carpeted floor without the expense, and leaving access to some areas of flooring – more about which below. Whether you have rugs or carpets, there are some issues that can arise with carpeting. Let’s take a closer look at these.

Cleaning your carpets is a specialist skill. Using the wrong products, even in a high-end carpet cleaner, can result in your carpet being permanently stained or faded with unsightly blotches.

Carpets can age badly. Choosing a lovely pale carpet may seem sensible when you’re young and enthusiastic during a beautifully dry summer, but given a rainy year, and the addition of a puppy or a baby: suddenly, that wonderful pastel shade begins to lose its attractiveness!

Carpeting a whole room can result in uneven wear, with the areas with highest footfall showing loose or worn threads, while those areas underneath sofas and chairs remain pristine (even if they get a little dusty!)

The ideal is, of course, to have a carpet that’s soft and springy underfoot, while retaining its original colour, and remaining sturdy and durable for years. How can this be achieved?

Choose carefully in the beginning. Decide if you’re buying a carpet or rug to last a year or two, before you move from rented digs into your own place; or if this carpet is going directly into the home where you plan to stay for decades, if not, for life. Invest as much as you can in your carpet – indeed, in all your furnishings and fittings – if the latter is the case. Buying a sturdy, dirt-and-wear resistant carpet is an excellent investment, and will set your home up to look great for years to come. This is where rugs may be a better option. If you can plan to leave high traffic areas – access to other rooms, entryways and so on – uncarpeted, they are easier to keep clean and tidy.

Keep the carpet clean by ensuring that people wipe their feet thoroughly before walking on it, or have them remove their shoes entirely – nothing is more homely feeling than (clean) bare feet on a soft clean carpet! Vacuum the carpet at least once a week, more frequently if you have pets, lots of young children or live in an area that attracts a lot of dust, pollen and wind-borne detritus.

Once a year or so, have your carpet professionally cleaned – a quick Google search of your location, for example, carpet cleaning in Glasgow, will throw up a directory of skilled operatives such as this cleaning company. A professional carpet cleaner can remove depths of dirt and residue that your domestic vacuum cannot touch, plus they can wash heavily soiled areas, then removing most of the water with an efficiency that householders would struggle to match.

There are commercial treatments available that you can apply to your carpet after it’s been professionally cleaned to keep that freshly-cleaned, crisp appearance for longer. Carpet cleaning, once mastered, need not be either expensive or time-consuming in the long run. Speak to your carpet cleaning professional for more hints and advice on how to keep your carpet in great condition for longer.

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