However, if you can carve out separate space for your children and their interests, especially as they grow older, it is worth it. Wall to wall Brussels weave carpet in a 1930s Chelsea apartment by Daniel Slowik. (My mother carpeted her house in Yorkshire to match the colour of her dog, so that the hair wouldn’t show. Leopard-print carpet was used to tremendous effect by that bastion of Proustian elegance, Madeleine Castaing, in the drawing room of her house outside Paris. (Stark Carpet does a good contemporary version, if you’re tempted to follow suit.)