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By H. Camille Smith

	Fully-constructed within the Carpets of Dalton showroom is this 3300 square foot dream home. Here shoppers can see featured floorcoverings within a beautifully decorated home. Image courtesy of Carpets of Dalton.
	Find deals on locally-made and imported rugs of all colors and sizes. Image courtesy of Carpets of Dalton.

Next, we're off to Dalton, Georgia, which is known for good reason as the "Carpet Capital of the World". Seventy-five percent of all carpets and rugs in the US are manufactured within a 25 mile radius of Dalton. Major manufacturers based here include Shaw, Beaulieu and Mohawk. Chances are the rugs and carpets currently in your home and place of business originated in Dalton or its environs. Even products that are manufactured elsewhere, such as laminate or pre-finished wood flooring, can be found here for less because these products are warehoused and distributed from Dalton by the big manufacturers, resulting in great deals on overruns and discontinued finishes.

Dalton is literally a city of flooring outlets, there are well over 100 individual retailers within the city limits alone, with many more spilling into the neighboring towns and countryside. The largest by far is Carpets of Dalton, with almost a half million square feet of carpet, rugs, hardwood, laminate and ceramic flooring. They claim, in fact, to be the single largest floor covering retailer in the world. Here in one store, you can find over 300 different flooring lines, in all quality-grades and price points from bargain-basement closeouts on locally-made carpets and rugs to deals on hand-knotted dhurries imported from exotic locales.

In addition to its almost overwhelming size and the sheer volume of flooring selections available, Carpets of Dalton is also unique in that fully-constructed within the store is a 3,300 square foot beautifully-decorated dream home. The dream home is Southern Living's "Whitfield" plan and is redecorated regularly with the latest in furniture and flooring styles, all available for sale in the Carpets of Dalton showroom. The dream home has become a tourist destination in itself, and is a handy resource for indecisive shoppers who want to walk on the various floor coverings featured within the home before they buy. Don't worry about getting your purchases back to your home, they will happily arrange shipping for a single rug or several thousand square feet of hardwood flooring direct to your door.

• Carpets of Dalton: http://carpetsofdalton.com/index2.htm
  
• Dalton Visitor's Bureau list of lodging: http://www.daltoncvb.com/ess/accommodations