New Carpet: Final Details

This is it. My sixth (!) and final post on this new carpet we installed last week. Don’t cry. I’m sure you’ll see many more home pictures with the carpet in them. Ha!

To wrap things up, I just want to post a few detailed (aka random) pictures of the hallways and staircase - to show you the quirky things I LOVE about this new carpet in particular. I may toss in a little Q&A to explain the method behind our madness. And I’ll have some final Before & After shots to display the difference in the look and feel of the spaces. So, hold on to your hats folks, we’re going for a looong ride.

To start out, I’m actually going to address the Q&A segment. In reality, it’s just one question with multiple answers. If you don’t want to read our reasons for why we did what we did, feel free to skip down to the pictures below.

Question: WHY would we possibly want to cover up hardwood floors in the bedrooms and hallways and stairs with carpet? Aren’t most people ripping out carpet to install hardwood floors?

Answer(s):

1. These floors were covered in shag carpet for 30 years before we bought the house. They are roughly 80 years old and not in the best of shape. While we were willing to bite the bullet and pay to have the hardwood floors in the living room, den, and dining room refinished (seen here), we just aren’t willing to put the cost into all that would go into refinishing the rest of the house. We do plan to refinish the hardwoods in our Master Bedroom in the next couple years – possibly a DIY job, but the cost savings of carpet elsewhere was a big incentive to us. And to top it all off, the floors in the halls and the stairs had 2 different stains on them plus some paint. A nightmare.
2. Since we ripped said 30-year-old shag carpet up within a week of purchasing the house, but didn’t lay new carpet until now, we’ve actually lived in a house with ONLY hardwood floors for 21 months. This has been a blessing because it has actually revealed to me why I don’t love having just hardwood floors:
1. Maintenance of cleaning (vacuuming and washing) all the floors on a regular basis. The baseboards also get extra dirty/dusty without carpet to grab some of it.
2. The loudness of pounding footsteps when people walk around and go up/down stairs.
3. Echoing voices/noises because we don’t have enough textiles to absorb sound.
4. Cold feet in the winter (yes, the hardwood floors get cold in this old house).
3. I want our future babies/children to have some soft space to crawl/walk/play. And if an accident happens (like falling down the stairs), cushioned carpet is a safer way to go.
4. The first floor rooms have a variety of flooring as is (old hardwoods, new hardwoods, tile) and the hallway is right in the middle. Carpet was the only way to marry it all together.

These are the TOP reasons for our carpet choice. Carpet may not be what everyone else would choose, but it’s perfect for us and our current life circumstances.

Now, on to some detailed pics of halls and stairs to show what I love and why. We went with a very low pile carpet on purpose because we knew the carpet would butt up against hardwoods in other areas and we didn’t want there to be a big “bump”. Here’s the view from the kitchen into the hallway…

The carpet makes the hardwoods look more polished. More finished. Better.

And here’s the reverse view from the living room to the hallway…

The new hardwood floors in the kitchen are completely different than the old oak floors in the living room, but you don’t notice the difference as much with the carpet in the middle. It would have been terribly obvious if the two floors had met together had we gone with refinishing them in the hallway.

Underneath the built-ins in the hallway is on old air return. The grate must have been bigger at one point because there’s actually plywood in front it (that we would have needed to patch if we had refinished the floors). The carpet helps it look better.

I may eventually paint the grate white. You don’t really see underneath the built-in unless you get on your knees (or you’re a cat that crawls into tight places). Pardon the dust…

The tile in the bathroom looks nice against the carpet too. Since the tile is meant to look like a wood floor, it also would have looked strange against the oak floors in the hallway.

Next up, the stairs. We chose not to have a “runner” look but instead to have the carpet go all the way to the wall on the right side, but stay about an inch off the spindles on the left side. Practicality drove that decision. As much as I love design, my logical mind takes over sometimes.

I’m very glad we painted the ends of the treads and the spindles white. This enhances the beauty of the old the stairs. The contrast between the white paint and dark carpet is nice and adds visual interest. And the carpet guys did a nice job wrapping the carpet around the front of the treads.

Here you can see the spacing between the carpet and the spindles – an even amount on either side…

Don’t ask me why, but I love the landing on the stairs even more than before. It just looks so fresh and so clean, clean (name that song).

I can’t wait to dress up the walls of this area. It’s the “focal point” of the staircase. I’m collecting ideas via Pinterest (of course)…

You can see below our icky Master Bedroom floors next to the new carpet. It will be nice when we can refinish these hardwoods.

As I said, the hallway layout of our house is such that it just makes sense to put carpet in the space. It runs right down the middle of the house with an entrance into EVERY SINGLE ROOM. Not joking. The only room the hallway doesn’t touch is the den, which is connected by the living room. Otherwise, the hallway joins everything else together. And in the almost-two weeks we’ve lived with the new carpet, I continue to love this decision more and more every day. It solves all the problems I mentioned above. It was worth every penny.

Lastly, here are a few Before & After pictures.

I realize these aren’t the greatest pictures, but I hope they convey the big difference we feel in the rooms. And minus a little touch up painting that’s needed, it’s FINALLY time for the fun stuff – arrange furniture, hang curtains, and decorate walls. This, my friends, will be a long, large task, but I will enjoy every minute of it!

Note: If you missed the previous carpet posts, you can check them out here, here, here, here, and here.

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.

New Carpet: Purchase Process

I’m back to continue this mini series on the new carpet we installed on Monday. (Click here to see the sneak peek.) I meant to post this info on Thursday or Friday, but the busyness of work and life and just pure exhaustion got in the way.

So, I’m here with a weekend post to try and catch up, and then I’ll have a bit more for you this coming week. Hopefully, it’s not carpet overload for you, but for my own satisfaction, I want to get everything down in writing. So, today it’s story time about the purchasing of the carpet.

Let’s start from the beginning – a very good place to start. When you read you begin with A-B-C, when you sing carpet you begin with (name that song) … shopping, buying, and crossing your fingers you got it right.

While we’ve been planning to lay down some new carpet since we purchased the house, it wasn’t until 2 weeks ago that we actually looked at samples and got some price estimates. We knew we wanted to carpet 2 bedrooms and the stairs and hallways for no more than $1500. I didn’t know what that would get us in terms of quality/quantity of carpet.

We went to a local store here in Kenosha to start. They had lots of great options, but for some reason the interaction we had with the salesman left me really uneasy for a number of reasons.

1. I didn’t find him helpful, but pushy – as if he was trying to convince me of things I didn’t already know about carpet and design. I didn’t feel like I was given the time to just look around on my own and contemplate what might work.
2. Joey had drawn out on graph paper a perfect to-scale rendition of the spaces so that we could get real estimates that moment. The guy looked at the drawings, frowned, and said he’d try to use it but that he wouldn’t likely be close since they would prefer to come to the house and do their own measurements. He was condescending about the whole thing.
3. I mentioned that we had shoe molding down on all the floors because of the hardwoods being there (the shoe was already there when we ripped up the old shag carpet after purchasing the house). The guy immediately recommended we take it out, which we said we weren’t doing given that it was all painted perfectly with the baseboards, and we wanted it to be left in case we or anyone else wanted to take up the carpet someday and refinish the floors. Again he frowned and said it would be a lot of extra work and add cost to the install.

In the end, the estimate he gave was for $2200 – $700 for the 2 bedrooms and $1500 for the stairs/halls. Waaaay over our budget. We left, went home, and I was in a terrible mood about the whole experience. Within 10 minutes of being home, we left the house again to go to a different carpet store up in Racine, WI. I needed other options.

On the way to the next store, I mentioned to Joey the idea of buying carpet remnants to save on cost. He was skeptical that it would work, but I told him I wanted to check it out. The previous place didn’t even offer that as an option.

Once we arrived, I felt much more at peace in the new store. It was larger with more variety, the place was empty besides us and 2 salesman. So, I knew we could take our time and ask questions. The salesman was very nice and friendly. Within a few minutes of walking around the store, I looked at the back and low and behold, there stood rows of carpet remnants with sizes and prices all marked.

The salesman saw me look that direction and recommended we check it out as a great way to save money. I also liked being able to see the carpet in much more life-sized version than just the tiny samples. I’m such a visual person, this really helped. Once we got started here, there was no turning back. Another benefit of purchasing the remnants is fast installation because we don’t have to wait for the carpet to be ordered.

Joey handed this salesman his graph paper with measurements and the guy was blown away at the detail. He said no one ever came into the store with those kinds of measurements. He was so confident in Joey’s drawings that he felt no need to even have the store come out and measure. He said he could give us real costs that night and help us figure out what kind of  overall dimensions would be needed in the carpet remnants to cover the space.

For the hall and stairs, he figured out that 12 foot by 24 foot remnant would work. I found one I like that was almost exactly that size.

And check out this price. $550 with pad and install…

I like the colors. It was berber-esque carpet that would wear well and hide dirt. I liked that it had a small variety of colors and a some good texture/pattern to it. And at almost $1000 below the other store’s price, I couldn’t pass.

I bring my paint swatches EVERYWHERE I go. They’re one of my staple purse items (who doesn’t carry paint swatches with them?). So, I whipped that out just to be sure the paint would look alright with the brown color. It was a perfect complement to the blue colored walls.

I was sold!

For the 2 bedrooms, we went with a plush carpet. This happened to be a pretty high-end carpet on major discount.

A 12X22 remnant would cover both bedrooms and the large closet in the upstairs bedroom. The only thing we had to leave out was the downstairs bedroom closet, but I didn’t mind. It’s super tiny and has the hardwood floor in it.

The price of $789 was a tad higher than the previous store, but it was much nicer carpet than we had picked out there. I could tell by running my fingers through it how nice it would feel under our feet. It was supper soft and fairly long strings.

Again, I had to hold out my paint swatch to make sure it would work…

We were sold!

And with that, we purchased the carpet. We did get a pad upgrade. We wanted quality padding that would help the carpet’s longevity and feel good on the feet. Total cost came to $1330, which is actually LESS than if you simply add the prices in the pictures above. He gave us a discount – even with the pad upgrade. Now THAT is how you win over a customer. And it was under our $1500 limit. Whew!

We booked the date for the carpet install and left. Then I sweated it out for 6 days waiting and waiting and praying I had made the right choices. There was no turning back.

Next up? The install pictures… coming Monday!