Wall-to-wall carpeting: filling a room wholly with carpet.
Carpet dominates many British family homes these days and it’s a major home-fashion piece globally. However, the United States were far quicker to embrace wall-to-wall carpets than us Brits. As a matter of fact, the U.S have been fixated with the luxury of wall-to-wall carpeting since the 1930s, whilst the UK trailed behind the trend. The masses here didn’t adopt the look until the 1960s/1970s!
I find it fascinating to see how fashions have changed over the decades and why it is that we’ve seen a retreat from the traditional rug.
Benefits of Clean Carpets
There are a TON of benefits to fitting carpets in your home, many of which I’ve spoken about before.
- Noise absorbing
- Cleaner air
- Insulation (my tiled kitchen floor is already giving my feet a winter chill in the mornings!)
- Low effort to clean
Of course, this all comes at a cost. Keeping our carpets clean is easy enough in the short-term but in the long-term, all too often, we lose that beautiful new carpet look.
Prior to the trend of wall-to-wall carpeting, exquisite Arabian and Chinese handmade rugs were the must-have luxury item: a statement piece to accentuate the room. Whilst this particular trend has all but died out in most modern-day homes, except perhaps for the super wealthy, its demise saw the loss of our old cleaning habits.
Evolution of Carpet Cleaning
As we welcomed in the 20th century, rugs saw the benefit of a hygiene revolution, on top of a social revolution which culminated with more equal rights in the home. Needless to say, however, it turns out that cleaning and the rug hold an important place in *academic literature (who knew?!) Due to new inventions there were plenty of new cleaning products to try out in the home.
What does that mean for us? It highlights how attitudes to cleaning have changed! Previously, the threat of dust and grime in the home was looked at with a Terminator-like gaze, that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud. Everything and anything was used to clean the family home and its rugs. Tea leaves and French bread were popular cleaning ingredients, nothing was off limits.
Nowadays, we have it down to a well-practiced science! Stains? Carpets looking old and worn out? There are plenty of cleaning solutions available. Although a good cuppa and a baguette might be good for me, it’s clearly not best for your carpets (despite old-fashioned housewives’ tales).
Carpet Cleaning Inventions
Interestingly, our American friends, at one point, relied on a gasoline powered cleaning machine (I kid you not)! In 1898, John S. Thurman of St. Louis invented his gasoline-powered “pneumatic carpet renovator” … it was the size of a horse-drawn carriage! Nowadays, my hot water extraction cleaning methods are the Premium Industry Standard.
Past worries about dust and grime might have been excessive but with a thorough professional cleaning every 6-8 months you’ll be quid’s in keeping your carpets in tip-top shape. Plus, you’ll be all the healthier for it!
Are you looking for a helping hand with your upholstery, carpets, or rugs? Get in touch with me today and book your next cleaning appointments ahead of time.
Call me on 01572 503123
*If you’re interested in the history of the home and its impact on health and society, give this a read: Boel Burner, ‘The meaning of cleaning: The creation of harmony and hygiene in the home’, June 2008:
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