Carpet Style Guide
Different carpet styles can blend to give your home a range of distinctive looks. A carpet’s style can also affect its performance. But, like color, style is a matter of personal preference. The following is a description of the most common styles to give you an idea of what you can choose when shopping.
Articles In the Carpet Buyer’s Guide
Cut Pile
If you want to make a large room look cozier, you might want to consider darker colors. On the other hand, if you’re trying to make a small room seem larger, you might consider lighter color carpets and painting the walls a lighter shade of your carpet color to create the illusion of a larger room.
Cut and Loop
As its name suggests, a cut and loop carpet is made up of a combination of looped yarn and cut yarn. The pattern created by this process can vary from carpet to carpet. But no matter how it’s done, a cut and loop carpet always delivers a distinctive, sculptured effect. Which make them ideal for the more distinctive areas of your home.
Friezes
The individual yarns in a frieze are twisted even more tightly than those in saxonies, giving them a distinctive pebbled look. They are also the most rugged of the cut piles which make them perfect for high traffic areas.
Saxonies
Also known as plushes, saxonies are a little more durable than velvets. Each yarn in a Saxony is twisted together tightly, making them more resistant to crushing and matting but still very soft and pleasing to the touch. Because of their nice feel and durability, saxonies are the most popular carpet choice and can be used in many different areas of your home.
Velvets
Velvets are the densest, most luxurious cut pile carpets. Each yarn in a velvet has very little twist to it to create the appearance of an uninterrupted sweep of color. Because of that, they feel very soft and elegant and are perfect for the more formal areas of your home.
Level Loops
Like berbers, level loop carpets are made by attaching both ends of a piece of yarn to the carpet’s backing, thus forming a loop. This process is repeated thousands of times until a field of equally high, equally wide loops is formed. Once complete, a level loop carpet is ideal for high traffic areas because it’s nubby, looped construction makes it very durable.
Multi-level Loops
Also known as sculptured or carved carpeting, a multi-level loop carpet is made much the same way a level loop carpet is. And, like a level loop carpet, it’s also noted for its durability. The difference is that the heights of the loops in a multi-level loop carpet vary from loop to loop, creating a rippled, randomly patterned effect.
