Ulster Carpets
Habitus
Tufted loop · 24 design-colourways across two families
Habitus is Ulster's tufted loop range in 100% wool. A loop is not woven: the yarn is punched into a backing and left uncut, which gives a textured, hard-wearing surface with a more casual feel than an Axminster. The designs are Scandinavian in influence — quiet geometrics, stripes and textures — twenty-four design-colourways across two families, Croft and Strond.
Habitus designs and colours
No separate runner designs are listed in this collection, though the range is made in widths down to 1m.
Click any swatch to see it larger.
Croft 14 colourways
Strond 10 colourways
A photograph of carpet on a screen is only ever a guide — wool takes colour differently to a monitor, and daylight in your own room changes it again. The samples are on display in the showroom, and we are happy to book one out for you to live with for a few days before you decide.
Specification
| Construction | Tufted loop |
|---|---|
| Pile | 100% wool |
| Widths | 5m (16'5"), 4m (13'1"), 3m (9'10"), 2m (6'6"), 1m (3'3") |
| Tog | 1.6 (a measure of thermal insulation, not of quality) |
| Suitability | Heavy wear |
| Moth | Moth proof |
| Design-colourways | 24, across two design families |
Figures as published by Ulster Carpets, and some vary between designs in a range. Pattern repeat, match and the full technical specification are available on request — just ask, in the showroom or on the phone.
From the shop floor
What it’s like to live with
Where it works
The loops give a surface with grain to it, so it sits well in a living room or a bedroom, and equally in a home office or a converted loft where a traditional pattern would look out of place. Rated heavy wear, moth proofed, and at 100% wool it recovers from furniture and resists soiling.
Joins and stairs
The rows of loops run in lines, so a join is brought together row to row or the eye picks up the break in the grain; we plan a seam away from the main light and out of the walking line. Widths up to 5m often take a room without one. On the stairs the loops sit proud over each nosing, which wants a firm underlay beneath it.
Worth knowing
Direction counts as much as a pattern would: two pieces laid facing opposite ways read as two shades under a window, so a doorway join between rooms in one colourway must run the same way through both. Vacuum gently — a hard brush bar fuzzes loops — and snip a pulled loop level rather than tugging it.
Why it matters who lays it
Woven carpet is fitted differently
We have been selling Axminster from this shop for over sixty-five years, and our fitters are time-served men who work with woven carpet regularly rather than once in a blue moon.
That matters more than it used to. Something like ninety-five per cent of what goes down in British homes today is tufted, so a great many fitters have simply never had much woven carpet through their hands.
A woven carpet asks for things a tufted one does not. A pattern has to be set out on paper before anything is cut. A repeat has to be carried true up a flight of stairs and round a winder. Pile direction has to run the same way through every piece, or a single colour reads as two.
None of it is difficult for someone who does it week in and week out. All of it goes wrong in the hands of someone who does not.
You might also look at
Other Tufted Loop ranges
See it
Loop texture is what a photograph cannot give you — the grain goes flat on a screen and the quiet colour of a 100% wool yarn with it. The Lostock Hall displays let you put a hand on a few, and we will book a sample out for a few days, or bring them to you, measure up and see where any seam would fall.
See Habitus in your own light
Woven carpet never reads correctly on a screen, and it rarely reads correctly under showroom lighting either. Come and look at the displays, then take a sample home with you — we are happy to book one out so you can live with it for a few days and see it against your own walls, at your own windows, morning and evening. If it is easier, we will bring samples out to you and measure up while we are there.
Book a free home visitVisit the showroom144–146 Brownedge Road, Lostock Hall, Preston PR5 5AE · 01772 336118 · Mon–Sat 10am–5pm · Free parking