What’s with beige carpet? I’m totally serious. More to the point, what’s with people scrubbing up their homes to go on the market by installing beige carpet, of all things? Nobody wants it, and it doesn’t benefit anyone, so why do people insist on ruining their otherwise nice properties by adding this most banal of fixed furnishings?
It’s an insult to the very concept of good taste – it’s like, look at me, I’m so middle-of-the-road, so attuned to the norm, such a representation of the proverbial every-man. I assume people think that projecting this image will somehow help their market offering appeal to a higher number of people, and that may well be true. It’s also true that, somewhere in that pool, there’s bound to be a high bidder.
Maybe someday, when I’ve had some experience with trying to sell a house, I’ll become wise to the whole rationale. Maybe I, too, will someday lay down beige carpet, without a shred of irony or shame. In the meantime, though, I’ll be working with property advocates for buyers across Melbourne to campaign for less beige carpet.
It’s about more than just the carpet. It’s what the carpet represents, which is the idea that you can ‘add value’ to a property purely for the sake of adding value – that is, without actually improving it in any real way. It’s an illusion of improvement; if anything, it’s actually the opposite because you have to remove the carpet if you want to enjoy the house to its full potential, and not always be harassing your guests to take their shoes off or pay for your carpet cleaning if they spill red wine on it.
What would I prefer? Well, floorboards, obviously, but even lino would be preferable to beige carpet. At least you don’t have to live in perpetual fear of staining it and thereby bringing down the value of your investment.