“Carpet flooring in the kitchen”.
Oh, boy. Where to begin with this one.
Sigh.
There’s a certain stereotype here. You may envision yourself in full-length mink with a side-eye sharp enough to cut glass, as you pour Châteauneuf-du-Pape over those Waitrose cornflakes, before strolling across your kitchen carpet with the tingling sensation of immaculate Royal treatment.
The reality can be somewhat…different. For some, a carpeted kitchen acts as a nostalgic throwback laced with delusions of grandeur. For others, it’s a travesty of retro proportions.
To understand why, we need to delve into the decade that taste forgot. Where brash glamour met glorious madness. A time of disco, decadence, soft focus lenses, and unhinged decorating trends. Really unhinged. Dangerously unhinged. Black Forrest Gateau and blinis with Cadbury's Smash, anyone?
Blame the 1970s
This was the era that gave us shagpile carpets, brown floral wallpaper, and an obsession with Vladimir Tretchikoff’s The Green Lady. Naturally, we refer to the 1970s – a time where dignity gave way to avocado bathrooms and colourblind interior clashes, mainly fuelled by overdoses of cheese fondues and prawn cocktails.
However, let’s give credit where it’s due. Here we were introduced to glam rock, platform heels, Roger Moore as 007, and the blessed art of casually smoking indoors. But not everything aged like fine wine. Some things, like wallpaper so textured you could grate cheddar on it, or powdered mash potato (ahem, Smash...), deserve to be left in the dust of Shoom and Blitz.
And then there’s carpet in the kitchen. The misfit choice, also seen as betrayal to those sacred about the home. A domestic war crime delivered in soft pile. You might think that’s an overly dramatic stance, but we’d honestly put it right up there with humanity’s greatest missteps.
We, as a species, have a troubling history of backing terrible ideas with worrying confidence. Guillotining people for wearing the wrong hat or marrying someone French. Burning successful women alive at the stake for knowing how to use herbs. And James Corden being allowed to host anything. Ever.
Carpet in the kitchen is just another example, this time, hiding in plain sight under your Crockpot slow cooker and SMEG fridge.
Carpet in the Kitchen: Cosy or Catastrophic?
Don’t tell me that it’s lovely and soft to have kitchen carpet. So is moss, a wet dog, or Soylent Green. That doesn’t mean we start laying it down in the most important room of the house. And there’s one big, main reason for our opinion.
Kitchens exist as a culinary war zone. It’s the place where we keep ourselves alive; the place where bacon fat spits across the room with cannonball force; where pasta boils over like rabid lava; where rice and cereal and crumbs detonate like shrapnel. It’s where younglings drop entire bowls of cereal mid-tantrum, and your partner knocks over the wine trying to show off to the neighbours. Not to mention whatever your pets feel like doing to it when you aren’t looking. Pets and carpets are another matter entirely.
A kitchen floor must endure sauce-based trauma, emotional baking, and the odd dropped lasagne like a soldier on the frontlines. Carpet? Well, carpet absorbs that chaos. It doesn’t stand strong in the face of curry sauce, cooking oil, or orange juice. It stains when the teabag is dropped, and smells like an untamed dump after one dinner mishap too many as time marches on.
Unless your kitchen is there purely for show, carpet is not a hygienic idea unless you steamclean the floor three times per day.
The taint of last Tuesday’s Tikka Masala (and also regret)
Unlike a nice solid tile, sturdy engineered wood panel, or venerable rolls of vinyl that can be wiped clean with the swish of a mop or cloth, carpet clings. It nestles those crumbs deep into the roots. It cradles grease. It whispers: “don’t worry, I’ll keep that mushroom risotto spill forever.”
It doesn’t forget and it doesn't forgive. Before long, your kitchen reeks like a cheap buffet in a forgotten social club. No scented candle can save you. No reed diffuser can fight this war. Even your Labrador starts looking nervous.
Let’s also address the classic excuse of “my gran had carpet in her kitchen”. I bet she also used to warm her slippers in the airing cupboard and thought microwaves came straight from the Devil himself. Just because it was fashionable back in the 1970s doesn’t mean we should relive it. Your gran probably also boiled cabbage until it begged for death, and believed Keeping Up Appearances to be a documentary. Let’s not romanticise everything.
We have options now! LVT so convincing it looks like Parisian oak. Laminate that’s more resilient than a hungover parent on a Sunday morning. Tiles that survive dogs, toddlers, and spouses with zero spatial awareness. We’re in the golden age of flooring, and you’re seriously still considering wall-to-wall beige fluff next to your oven? Are you sure that someone hasn't put bathsalts in your tea?
Then there's the issue of fire safety. Look, I know almost all modern carpets are flame retardent, but if you drop a flaming fondue down upon the floor, it's not going to end well for anyone.
Are you ok?
Perhaps the real reason is self-destruction. If you choose carpet in your kitchen, it’s not for style. It’s not for comfort. It’s self-sabotage. You want to suffer. You want to live on the edge. You want to know the existential dread of cleaning curry out of boucle.
Of course, maybe you love your hideous kitchen carpet. It’s got character. It reminds you of simpler times - a retro childhood, where the whiff of nostalgia laced with burnt toast and Sunny Delight counteracts today’s modern stresses.
And that’s fine. If you truly adore it, and you’re willing to accept the potential shame, the cleaning effort, and the fragrant consequences, then you be you. The world spins because of our delightful differences. If we all had taste, James Corden wouldn’t have a career.
We’d never state that there isn’t room in this world for your shagpile spaghetti trap. Just, don’t expect applause. A bit like sporting a mullet on the dating scene, kitchen carpet was once briefly acceptable, but now largely a red flag.
If you want comfort, get slippers. If you want warmth, get a heated floor. But if you want something that won’t turn into a crime scene during soup season? Skip the carpet. Please. Not when Snug can help you carpet the rest of your house instead.
Lead image courtesy of an old Viking advert.
