Carpet Envy

My dad and step-mother recently had new carpet installed. When they told me they were getting new carpet, I smiled and nodded absent-mindedly as I gathered my belongings for my Thursday morning break. But, after my workout in their garage, I found myself gazing wistfully at the roll of carpet remnants in their back yard, dreaming of the day when we’d have a nice, soft, plush, clean carpet in our house. No sippy cup drips running the length of one room, no doggie footprints marking the path from the dog door to the dog’s bed, no memory of those smelly cat deposits hidden in corners.

The carpet we have now came with the house. It’s the cheap stuff that realtors recommend when you’re trying to sell a house. Off-white, so it shows well for a sale, but a terribly impractical color for living with. It’s not just that it’s white though, it’s also that shabbily manufactured kind that looks frayed within six months of use. Throw a couple of young kids and a few pets into the mix, and even steam cleaning it a couple of times a year is just barely keeping it decent enough to live with.

At some point we’ll have to give in and have new carpet put in, but it’s a tough call when to do that. Obviously, we can’t wait until all of the pets die and the children no longer spill a thing. We’ve considered having hardwood floors put in instead of carpet, but every time the girls go stomping through the kitchen in their hard-soled princess shoes or the dog drops one of his hefty cow bones on the tile in the entry way, we realize that it’d be noisy alternative.

So I’ve gone from hardwood floor envy back to plush, clean carpet envy. But next time I want an actual color, and the most stain-resistant variety they make. Something soft, but just shy of Astroturf when it comes to durability.