A lot of people I have known or visited over the years have white or cream colored carpets (or floors) in their house, and I can understand the attraction. White or cream is a neutral color that goes with about everything, and white carpets can have a very luxe look to them as well. When we purchasde our house here in Nederland, the hallways, stairs and bedrooms were carpeted in a cream-colored berber carpet, that has come to be the bane of my existence. As if cream colored carpet wasn’t enough, our kitchen and bathrooms were tiled in white tile. While white carpets in a nice suburban area probably seems like a fine idea, I have come to find that white carpets in a mountain area off a dirt road, with a dirt/gravel driveway, with windows open all summer long is a HORRIBLE idea. Add in cats and dogs and their associated fur and shedding, and and the recipe is a short route to Crazyville, trying to keep the house clean. And for the life of me I can not understand how anyone would choose light colored anything in their house.
I wish I could say I was one of those people who cleaned every day, and stayed on top of these things, but over the years, I have accepted that is not me. There are people I have known (including one here in Nederland) who live in what I call “Museum Houses”. These being homes where everything is ordered and spic and span clean to the point where it looks like a historical museum you are touring where no one ever lives there. That is DEFINITELY not me or Bryon. I simply can’t find the energy after working all day to put that much energy into keeping the house clean. So we are lucky if we get around to some light dusting, cleaning bathrooms, and vacuuming once a week. When all the dust and dirt and fur seeps into those darned cream-colored carpets, they take on a dingy appearance, that even our Dyson vacuum cleaner can’t entirely remove.
And so I am on a mission. A mission to rid our home of any type of floor material that is white, cream, or off-white. We started with our floors, and have now changed over our foyer and kitchen to a dark, slate-type flooring that while I am sure is dirty, doesn’t look like. Next step — to rid the rest of the house of that darned cream-colored carpeting one step at a time. I’m thinking a nice deep forest green, or blue would look nice and would infinitely improve my household serenity by leaps and bounds. Home Depot — here I come!
