Light-colored Carpeting

When we renovated and moved into this house 12 years ago, we chose light carpeting. I have no idea what we were thinking. The baby was 8-years old -- an age that involves climbing trees and lots of muddy exploring. We had a big, black dog and now we have another one.

For three years, we had the oldies with us. That involved multiple stains of every imaginable type.

The husband's drink of choice is red wine. He routinely knocks it over while reaching for glasses or the remote control.

In 12 years, we've had lots of parties. There's an old saying, "It ain't a party until something gets broken." In our case, it ain't a party until something gets spilled.

I don't need photos to remember our years (so far) in this house. I can look at the carpeting.

One of my friends is trained as an interior decorator. She also owns several homes. As you can imagine, they're all beautiful. She told me once that carpeting should be in one of three color palettes: sand, sea or grass. If I ever buy new carpeting, I will take her advice.

Grilled by the Carpet Cleaning People

Our carpeting is destroyed. I wish I could place the blame on the oldies but we've all participated.

I explained which areas I would like cleaned. I said there are many stains. She thought it might be fun to discuss how these stains came to be. (Yeah, I'm convinced this will change the approach to the carpet cleaning.) But, I'm game. I filled her in:

We have a big dog. She has not learned to wipe her feet properly.

We used to have oldies. Every fall involved some kind of blood stain. Sometimes we had double falls and the blood looked like a scene from The Shining.

The husband reaches for the remote or his glasses. A glass of red wine is often the casualty.

The path from the kitchen to the patio includes a trek through the living room. Meat drips happen, especially if you're carrying the tray after some wine.

We like to entertain. We don't freak out if something is spilled. Obviously, we don't do a super job of cleaning it up.

At the end of this discussion, she was very anxious to book my appointment and get off the phone. I was just getting started.