New Carpet: Installation Process

I’m back with more carpet drama. Yes, the drama never ends. You may be sick of this topic by now, but I have five thousand carpet pictures to share with you, and I’ve only shared like 10 so far. So, we have a long way to go. *wink, wink*

Today, I’m gonna share some of the pictures I took of the carpet installation process. I actually don’t have a ton of these (well, only about 50) as I wanted to stay out of the way as much as possible. I wanted these guys to do a good job and not be annoyed with the girl walking all around with a camera like a creeper. I’m sure all you photo-taking freaks know where I’m coming from…

When the big red van full of carpet rolls pulled up, I stalked it from my living room window. I did a nervous, happy dance – like when you’re excited and have to pee really badly and therefore, jumping up and down is somehow the best way to resolve that problem.


From there, things started to move really quickly. This whole process took about 6 and 1/2 hours, but it felt like minutes to me. First things first, the tack strips went down around the perimeter of the halls and bedrooms.



The picture above gives you a good shot of the extremely beat up floors in the hallway. Refinishing them wouldn’t even be that satisfying given that they meet up with the beautiful new hardwoods in the kitchen. I think it would have been an awkward transition between the two. Carpet helps marry it all together.

Next came the padding. They spent quite a while on this. I took this photo while sitting on the couch. Again, didn’t want to be in the way.


Spike had a good view from the couch too. He was terrified of the noises coming from that part of the house, but couldn’t stand not to watch. Cats are curious like that. (Ignore the mattress leaning on the dining room wall scenario…it’s temporary.) And yes, we watched TV all day while waiting on these guys. Shows like Pawn Stars, Auction Hunters, and American Pickers had our full attention. It’s like watching the Antiques Roadshow on steroids. We’re slightly addicted.


The padding looked purdy. So, I knew the carpet would look purdier.



Speaking of carpet, that’s next…


...along with a smoke break for the guys installing it. This is when Spike decided it was safe enough to inspect the new surroundings...


But it was mostly so he could reach the food bowl. I guess he needed one of his ten meals for the day before falling into a cat coma on the couch for the next 4 hours.


This process got loud as it involved a lot of banging during the stretching of the carpet.


Plus, a glue-gun like smell permeated the house due to whatever tool they use to seam the carpet along the stairs and places where it’s not being tacked down.


Because the carpet lays all over the baseboards before it’s cut to size, and the back of the carpet is like sandpaper, and the stretching of carpet involves a tool banging against your baseboards (that sounds like dirty talk), your baseboards and shoe moldings tend to get a little beat up. We have some slight touching up to do with white paint. More on that later.

Once cut to size and tacked down, it looks mighty pretty. The extra carpet pieces in the middle were thrown out.




Remember my story on Saturday about the bad carpet store that wanted us to rip out all our shoe molding? Well, guess what? These guys not only were fine with keeping the shoe, but they actually laid the carpet in a way that you can view the shoe molding at the bottom of the baseboards throughout all the rooms. It’s a lovely finishing detail.


Below are the only 2 pictures I got of the bedrooms while the carpet was being installed. It’s the downstairs bedroom (I was too chicken to try and make my way upstairs in the mess of it all)…


You can see all the carpet strands all over the floor that have to be vacuumed up afterwards. The guys did a quick vacuum to get about 90% of it, but then Joey and I went through and thoroughly vacuumed it all, including the baseboards and hardwood floors in the other rooms where fuzz and strands and dusted floated.


Here is another picture of the baseboards and shoe molding in the bedroom. I love how it all shows. When you don’t have the shoe, the carpet usually gets tucked just under the baseboards, which is a nice, seamless look. However, I like the uniqueness of the way this looks.


The upstairs bedroom had a little prep work before the carpet went down. It has 2 closets (yes, this old house is FULL of closets – lucky me). When we bought the house, Joey had ripped out some of the hard wood planks in this closet in order to patch some of the hardwoods in the living room and den before we had them refinished. So, Joey had to rip out the rest of the hardwood planks in the closet and lay down plywood so that the floor was level and the carpet could go down. These were the kind of DIY tasks that helped to knock down the cost of the carpet.


This closet still needs to be painted – that’ll happen soon.


The 2nd closet on the other side of the room is unfinished, so it was not being carpeted.


Someday I hope to turn it into a play space for kids. I can picture bookcases, toys, and fun things in here. Kids love hide-outs.


The carpet looked great in this room. It makes it feel so cozy. I even like the wall color better with the carpet color on the ground.


This closet it now functional and I’m loving it!


To show you an example of some touch-ups needed, here is a picture of the shoe molding in this bedroom after the carpet was installed. The banging of the boards caused the shoe to actually separate from the baseboards and the paint to chip a little…


In a matter of minutes (literally), Joey ran some white caulk along the cracks in the bedrooms and hallways, and it made a world of difference. Now, just a little touch up painting is needed.


Well, now that you’ve seen some of the installation details, I owe you (more) pictures of the final product, including some of my favorite details that made this whole escapade so worthwhile. Coming soon…

Pssst - I’m an OCD, detail-oriented, type-A-ish kind of gal in case you didn’t know that. So, if you can tolerate 1 or 2 more posts on our new carpet, stay tuned for the rest of the week and I’ll indulge you. And I’ll love you forever. Next week, I’ll have some new material for ya.