Home decorating, interior design ideas, garden design - Homes and Gardens

Alternative Flooring, founded in 1992, is an environmentally conscious British company, which has brought a soft and textured look to natural floorings made from coir, seagrass, sisal and wool. Working with interiors stylist Melinda Ashton Turner, the company developed the Rock 'n' Roll carpet collection to make floors a little more exciting. The range features six tightly looped striped designs, with elegantly narrow bands of pattern in a choice of six carefully controlled colourways. The judges particularly liked Wild Thing, a subtle mix of aubergine, sage and shades of grey. A brighter variation, Roxanne, is a mix of crimson, pink and taupe, while Back in Black is, as it sounds, more formal and severe. The three other colourways, including Freebird (right), are softer in tone, with shades of sage/olive, fawn/grey or sky/cream.

This carpet is 100 per cent pure new wool, with a heavyweight jute backing. It is suitable for heavy domestic/medium contract use and can therefore cope happily with stairs and living rooms in the home. These striped designs have the practical advantage of concealing dirt and stains, without being obtrusive. They could be fitted wall-to-wall or loose-laid as a square with a border in, for example, leather or linen. The carpet is 4m wide, so large spaces can be covered without seams. Narrow widths, however, can be cut for stairs and/or runners. The stripes in the Rock 'n' Roll collection team with plain colours from the company's range.