What's the most practical colour carpet?

[Scarletohello]

Hi I'm going to get some rooms re carpeted and as I've never done this before was wondering what people's thoughts were on the most practical colour/type of carpet to cope with stains, hair etc?

Any ideas..? :)

[UncrushedParsley]

Lots of pubs used to have predominately red, patterned carpets, presumably for this reason. I am coming to the conclusion despite not much liking it that brown/beige pattern mixes are the way to go. I am told that reasonable quality synthetic carpet is more resistant to stains than pure wool.

[alwayssleepy]

Yep, what parsely said. A browny/grey/beige mix hides dirt and stains, and if you go for a synthetic one then the colour is not dyed into the fibres like with wool, its actually the colour of the plastic fiber. This means you can scrub it and bleach it and not make pale patches.

Also, synthetic carpets dry quicker if you use a vax or bissell type carpet cleaner on them.

[Scarletohello]

Thanks for that! I was thinking along similar lines but as I said I have absolutely zero knowledge about carpets at all...

[Bunbaker]

The best one we had looked blue, but if you took a closer look it had strands of other colours in it. A very plain carpet is very unforgiving.

[betold]

We have a very old fashioned patterned carpet in out living room. It's a cream base with a detailed flower patten in lots of colours.

It must be 30 years old but looks better than most plain carpets do after 5 years. You can't see anything on it - which means I keep stepping on stray Cheerios that I'd not noticed

I won't be replacing it with a pattern as I don't like the fact you can't tell it's dirty!

Went for a mid/dark brown synthetic in the dining room which has a fleck of lighter brown in it. Holding up very well even with a very messy pair of kids and has dealt we'll with red wine

[brightonbirdy]

The carpet we have in our lounge/hall/stairs/one of the bedrooms!

From a distance it is a mid-brown/pink colour. If you look closely, it has flecks of other colours running through it. It was here when we moved in and has had various drinks chucked over it, cat sick, etc.