Carpet dying, The Good, The Bad and the oh so Ugly

If you're carpet is wearing out and looks old and dingy you may think that carpet dying is for you. You may want to think this though because it may by the worst thing to ever happen to your carpet.

Seriously, if your carpet is so gross that you can't stand to look at it, then throw it out. It's 10 times more gross than you think. Have you ever seen the black water that gets flushed out of your dirty carpet when it's cleaned?

I've done my share of carpet cleaning and I want you to know that there's no way to get an old carpet clean. I don't care how powerful of a truck mounted machine you have, it can never clean down into the backing. You can clean a carpet a dozen times and on the last rinse, you will still see black gunk come out of the steam cleaner.

And another thing, from my experience as a veteran carpet repair man, dyed carpet usually looks like that old guy with the weirdly dyed hair. You know the one. He's like eighty-years old and has this strange brown/red/gross hair color.

Okay, that's a little rough because if a carpet was properly dyed, I'd never know that it was a good carpet dye job, it would look natural but hey, it's still gross and dirty. Blaugh!

If you still insist on dying your carpet the following may be useful.

Polyester, polypropylene, and acrylic carpet wouldn't be found dead being dyed so don't even try, you'll be sorrier than a wet chicken if you do. Nylon and wool take to the dye pretty well but you can color garbage any way you want and it will still be garbage.

If you want to dye your carpet a lighter color, you may be able to bleach it first and then dye it but be warned, bleach ruins carpet faster than a speeding... ticket.

Also, remember back in grade school when you mixed your colors and learned that blue and yellow made green? Well guess what Buttercup, it works the same with carpet too. If you want to change the color of your carpet I suggest that you test a small area first, preferably in the back of a closet or under the filing cabinets.

There are several ways to dye carpet, you can scrub the dye in or spray it on. Either way, if you get a little bit of overspray on your curtains they will be ruined so be careful, remove everything including the dog far from the danger zone. People won't be too understanding when they see your blue poodle.

I've never actually seen a great carpet dye job but according to some people, there're some real pros out there that do a darn good job.

It may be worth it to try to spot dye your own carpet if you only have a small bleach spot or if your carpet is already so far gone that it can't hurt it no matter how horrible the carpet dye job looks and the filth doesn't bother you.

Before you dye your carpet you should have it professionally cleaned first. That way even if it looks bad it will at least be cleaner. By the time you pay for a good professional cleaning and then a professional carpet dye job, you may as well have just gone out and bought new carpet, Especially if you are doing it because you have dog or cat urine in the carpet. Really, if you're dying your carpet to get rid of urine, then then stink will still be in the padding.

As long as I'm on the subject of bashing carpet dying, have you ever thought about just pulling out the carpet and cleaning the concrete slab under it? I'd rather see people living clean than coloring over the dirt.

Okay now you know how I really feel about carpet dying. Be that as it may if you decide to go ahead with it anyway, I do wish you all the luck in the world, you're going to need it.