How To Choose Carpet For A Home Office
In today’s connected world, home offices are more common than ever. Lots of people work from home, and even those that don’t generally prefer to have a separate area of the house where the computer and workspace can live.
But the style of carpet you have elsewhere in your house isn’t necessarily suitable for your home office. So what should you use instead?
Look For Something With A Low Pile
A home office is likely to have heavy furniture it in, as well as a rolling chair and maybe a desktop computer tower on the floor. A low-pile carpet will allow a rolling chair to move more freely, as well as being more resistant to dust buildup and denting from heavy furniture.
A looped berber style is often a good choice for a home office, as it tends to be a lower profile than other residential styles and has a denser, more compact feel ideal for heavy furniture. If you do go with a looped berber style, choose something with a level loop, where all the loops are the same height — a style with varying loop styles is more prone to snagging.
For a slightly more residential look, a cut-and-loop style gives you some of the benefits of a low-profile looped carpet, but with a more comfortable feel. You can get a random assortment of cut pile with loops or, for a little more variety, this style of carpet often comes in patterns as well.
Think About Going With Commercial Carpet
Commercial carpet is designed especially for the high-traffic environments of an office, so its durability and ability to handle a lot of wear and tear is unmatched. It’s generally not as soft as residential carpet, so if your home office is doubling as a guest room or a playroom, it might be a little too single-purpose for your tastes.
Commercial carpets usually come in very low-profile level loop or very short cut-pile styles — either one would work for a home office, but many find that the cut-pile styles have a slightly more comfortable feel to them than the level loop styles — which might be a good compromise between warmth and utility.
Commercial carpets are also often equipped with “anti-zippering” measures. Zippering is when a loop of carpet pulls up and starts to pull the loops next to it up with it, creating unsightly lines in the carpet. This happens because most carpets are looped in straight lines. Anti-zippering carpets, on the other hand, are stitched in a zig-zag pattern to prevent that type of damage.
You almost certainly won’t be putting your home office carpet through the same kind of punishment that commercial carpets see, but if you’re concerned about dragging furniture or rolling chairs, anti-zippering might be worth the extra cost.
Consider Whether You Need Anti-Static Carpet
Some commercial carpets, especially those intended for laboratories or hospitals, have advanced anti-static properties built into them. Most carpets come with some kind of anti-static treatment, though, so it’s unlikely that you’ll need anything industrial-strength in that regard.
If you have trouble with static in your home or are especially concerned about it, though — if you work with delicate electronics or live in a dry climate, for example — the additional anti-static properties offered by some commercial carpets might be worth looking into.
One Final Consideration
No carpet, no matter how durable, is immune to the wear and tear of heavy furniture and rolling chairs. No matter what kind of carpet you buy, you should put plastic feet under the legs of your furniture to lessen the denting caused by desks and heavy file cabinets. You should also consider a plastic mat to put under your chair — the chair will roll more easily and your carpet with thank you. Let’s get to work!