The carpet was installed yesterday and I love it! On our cottage projects at Ross Chapin Architects, we have always put carpet in upstairs. Neil and I had discussed whether to go to wood flooring, because carpet tends to get a bad rap when it comes to indoor air quality. The problem with wood, though, is it's noisier and in my opinion not as cozy for bedrooms...even with area rugs. That's why we decided on wool carpet. It's a natural material that some studies have found to actually help purify the air. Ecohaus, our local environmental home center, describes wool as "'green' by nature. Sheep can be shorn every 9 to 12 months, and wool is biodegradable. It needs none of the chemicals that must be added to synthetics to enhance their performance." We went with Godfrey Hirst's Torquay series, color: mushroom. It's 100% New Zealand wool.
Another thing to note about indoor air quality...because we have been so careful about the materials we have used to reduce the toxic chemicals building the home, we want to be diligent about what we track into the home. Since the carpet went in, there is a NO shoes policy upstairs. Eventually, it will be shoes off entering the home, but we still have cardboard down protecting the floors. If you really think about it, it's the only way to go. Do you really want to be tracking into your home all the places you have been walking?
We used a local family business to purchase and install our carpet, Vogel's Carpet. We HIGHLY recommend them. We originally went to a big outfit, Great Floors, but felt they weren't being upfront with us about the cost and when we questioned their calculations they actually were a bit hostile. Our experience with Vogel's was the opposite and they worked with us even as we kept postponing our install date. Not sure why I had forgotten that lesson...it's best to stick with local businesses that have been around for years and who you can trust.
