Carpet Brands in Northern Ireland: The Mills We Supply and What Each One Is Good At

Ulster Carpets, Cormar, Westex, Brockway, Kingsmead and Lifestyle Floors. Who makes what, where it is made, and which one is actually right for your room.

Most people walk into a carpet shop knowing roughly what they want the room to look like, and knowing nothing at all about who makes carpet. That is completely normal. But brand matters more than it looks like it should, because it decides how the carpet wears, how long you wait for it, and whether the colour you fell for is still available in six weeks.

Here is an honest run through the mills we buy from at our Antrim showroom, what each one is genuinely good at, and how to work out which is right for your house. We have deliberately not ranked them, because the best brand depends entirely on the room.

The carpet brands we supply in Antrim

Ulster Carpets

Ulster Carpets have been weaving in Portadown since 1938 and the founding family still own the business. They make woven Axminster and Wilton carpet, which is a genuinely different thing from tufted carpet: the pattern is woven into the structure rather than printed or tufted on, so it does not crush out in the same way. You will find Ulster carpet in hotels, on cruise ships and in a great many Northern Ireland hallways.

This is the brand to look at if you want a patterned carpet for a stairs and landing, or a heavy wool weave that will still be there when you sell the house. It costs more than tufted carpet and it is worth it in a hallway that takes a beating. There is also something to be said for the fact that it is made about an hour down the road.

Cormar Carpets

Cormar have been making carpet at their two Lancashire mills since 1956 and are still family owned. They are the range we sell most of, for two reasons. First, they cover the whole spread of budgets: easy-clean polypropylene for a busy family hall, soft deep pile for a bedroom, proper wool twist for a living room. Second, their stock depth and their own delivery fleet mean a colour you pick on a Tuesday is not a six week wait.

If you want one brand to look at first without overthinking it, this is usually the sensible starting point.

Westex

Westex are based in Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire and sit at the premium end of what we stock. They work in 100% wool and 80/20 wool nylon, and because they run their own dye house they can match a colour rather than asking you to accept the nearest one on the rack. Ultima Twist is the range people ask for by name.

Worth a conversation if you are building a room around a particular paint shade or fabric, or if you simply want the nicest thing underfoot and the budget allows it.

Brockway

Brockway have been making carpet in Kidderminster since 1964 and work almost entirely in wool. That focus shows in the product. Their plains, stripes and textured loops are the ones customers tend to stand on in the showroom and go quiet for a second. The Lakeland Herdwick range uses undyed British wool and has a natural, slightly flecked character that suits older houses and country properties.

Kingsmead

Kingsmead have been weaving in Ayrshire for over forty years, mostly in 80/20 British wool. They are who we point people towards when they want a stripe. Fair warning: a striped carpet up a stairs either looks superb or looks wrong, and the difference is nearly always the fitting rather than the carpet. Pattern matching on a turn is a skill, which is why we fit these ourselves rather than subcontracting.

Lifestyle Floors

Lifestyle Floors covers the middle ground and is the range we reach for most on vinyl. Their cushioned sheet vinyl is warm and soft underfoot, comes in wood and stone effects that hold up to a close look, and is the sensible answer for a kitchen, bathroom or utility room. They do carpet as well, so for a whole-house job it is often possible to keep everything on one supplier and one delivery.

Does the brand actually matter?

More than most people expect, but not in the way the marketing suggests. What you are really buying with a good mill is consistency and availability. A branded carpet from an established manufacturer will have a stated wear rating, a guarantee that means something, and enough stock behind it that if you damage a piece in three years there is a chance of matching it.

The other half of it is fibre and construction, and that cuts across brands. An 80/20 wool twist from any of these mills will outlast a cheap polypropylene from the same mill. So the honest order of questions is: what fibre, what construction, then what brand.

• Wool and wool-rich holds its pile, feels warmer and resists soiling. Best in bedrooms and living rooms.
• Polypropylene is bleach cleanable and cheaper. Best in playrooms, rentals and anywhere spills are guaranteed.
• Twist pile hides footprints and wears well. The default for stairs and hallways.
• Loop pile looks sharp but is not ideal in a house with cats. They pull it.
• Woven Axminster and Wilton hold pattern far better than tufted. Worth it on a stairs.

What we do not supply

We get asked about luxury vinyl tile fairly often, usually by name. We do not sell LVT, laminate or wood flooring. We stick to carpet and sheet vinyl because that is what we know how to fit properly, and we would rather tell you that up front than sell you something we are not the right people to lay.

If sheet vinyl will do the job you had LVT in mind for, and in a kitchen or bathroom it very often will, we are happy to show you the difference side by side and let you decide.

Buying a branded carpet in Antrim

We hold over 200 rolls in the showroom on Massereene Street, so most of what we have talked about here is something you can walk on rather than something you have to imagine from a photograph. What we do not have in stock we can order in directly from the manufacturer, usually within a couple of weeks.

Bring the name of any range you have seen and we will tell you honestly whether we can get it, what it costs fitted with underlay, gripper and door bars included, and whether something already on our floor would do the same job for less. That last answer is free and we give it fairly regularly.

We measure, supply and fit with our own team across Antrim, Ballymena, Randalstown, Ballyclare, Templepatrick, Crumlin, Toome, Newtownabbey, Glengormley and Belfast.