Our dream house didn’t have dreamy carpet. Oh no, no. It was more like a nightmare. Like a nightmare on Sucky Design Street. Every bedroom upstairs had a crazy non-neutral color that somehow matched and clashed with the walls all at the same time.
The guest bedroom has muted teal walls and the carpet was teal…but not so muted. Oh and did I mention the stains? Yeah. The weird brown stains with unidentifiable sources?…they were there.
The stains matched the ones on the teal carpet in the master bedroom.
Apparently the previous owners had a thing for teal. A very BIG thing.
The stains and color aside, the carpet was well worn in some areas. Sorry I don’t have a photo of it…but the carpet definitely was “well-loved”. The tread marks were in all the right spots…around the bed, down the hall, doorways, and the closets.
In fact, the only carpet that wasn’t noticably old was the blue carpet in the “Jack” room…after I vacuumed it, I told my darlin’ boyfriend that we should definitely save it for any of our future random carpet needs.
Of course the blue Jack room didn’t hold a candle to the carpet in the Jill room (aka the Will room). Seriously…someone was chuggin’ the crazy juice when they chose this carpet.
Crazy juice and wacky crackers. Who picks out lavender carpet? I didn’t even know they made it in this color.
Jeremy & I decided that the best time to replace the carpet would be before we moved in. That way we wouldn’t have to remove any furniture or repaint (in case the carpet we chose didn’t look good with a room we already painted). And since we already had a move date, that meant we only had a week to get the carpet picked, ordered and installed.
After many phone calls and shopping trips, we decided on the Martha Stewart carpet in the Winterthur design. It looks like a trellis pattern and it was pretty much the only design that both Jeremy & I could agree on.
We found out that Martha Stewart carpet (which is only available under that name through Home Depot) is actually created by Shaw Industries. Shaw Industries is a vast creator of carpets and they are sold all over the place (Lowes, Home Depot, etc). Since we live within a couple hours of one of the largest carpet hubs in the world, we even gave Shaw a call to see if we could get it at a wholesale price. We were even quoted a lower price than Home Depot offered but then came the bad news…we would have no way of getting the old out and the new in within our time deadline. AND there would be an even higher installation cost if we used our own contractor (vs. paying Home Depot installers the flat rate of $97 for all five rooms & six closets). So because the overall cost would be pretty much the same and using Home Depot meant that we would stay within our timeline, we decided to buy directly from HD.
All of our rooms totaled to roughly 1551 square feet. That’s a lot of carpet. And in order to get the warranties through Home Depot it meant that we would also need to replace the carpet pad. We had already planned to replace that…who knows how moist it got with those brown spots! Plus, we learned that a good carpet pad can actually extend the life of the carpet and make the carpet much softer (which is great for little knees).
Since Jeremy removed the blue Jack room carpet (because I am uber cheap and thrifty like that), we actually reduced the cost of the removal and haul away by $45 (hey…it’s like the gift that keeps on giving…free carpet for random future carpet needs and an extra forty-five bones). And we figured out that the local dump would have charged more for us to get rid of the old stuff anyway (they charge per pound) so the overall cost of $110 was a great steal. It was like we got the removal labor for free!
The carpet pad actually was a much harder choice for us than the carpet itself. We learned that the 8lb carpet pads were priced only a couple pennies a square foot more than the 6lb carpet pads so we immediately gravitated toward them. Plus, we wanted something recommended for our patterned carpet. Then we heard the magic words “lifetime pad warranty”…they described the Nike Grind carpet pad. The cool thing about this pad is that it is environmentally friendly. Nike sends all their shoe scraps to the foam company who then creates this recycled carpet cushion. We generally aren’t wooed by all-things-green but in this case, we were oddly excited that we were helping out just a smidge in keeping a little less outta the landfills. Here’s a link if you are interested in the carpet pad info available at Home Depot.
Yes, that is an installer’s ba-dunk-a-dunk puttin out the carpeting vibe.
When it came to installation, it actually took all four guys well over 8 hours to get the old out and the new in. They used our front circle drive as the layout space for cutting and prepping.
I thought it was so interesting that they had to trim the edges before they cut it for our rooms. I don’t have any clue why that is interesting…but to a girl who ain’t never seen carpet installed….it just was.
Each room required a seam. This was one of the MANY reasons that we did not attempt to install the carpet ourselves. We actually considered it (being avid DIYers and total cheapskates) but in the end, we knew that attempting to seam carpet together was one thing that we would have not felt comfortable doing. We like to categorize things in brackets…there are $10 mistakes and there are $50 mistakes. Ruining a bunch of carpet with bad seams would have been a $1000 mistake. That’s when we slapped down our credit card and said “Wewillpayforproperinstallationthankyouverymuch.”
The carpet color is actually something that turned out to be my third choice. At first, I was attracted to a much lighter, almost white color. Most of you know that I like white. I have a white couch, white dishes and towels…heck, I even have a white baby. But I can’t bleach carpet like I can with all my other white stuff (baby not included). And being a very dirty girl (heehee) I knew that we needed the rug to hide any future dirt smudges. So I changed my choice to go with a darker more green based brown. It was very similar to this color but the undertones were a little more olive. Then I got to thinking about future paint colors. And I decided that the green undertones weren’t as neutral as I may like. That is when I chose this – it’s called Ash Bark.
I love that it is a beige with gray undertones. Not too warm…definitely not too pink. Just right for my whole go-with-anything&hide-dirt idea.
And here it is after it was fully installed (you can see we had immediately brought furniture up into these rooms…that’s how tight our deadline was!):
From the angle above, you can see where the seam is…but I promise that after the carpet was vacuumed, it pretty much disappeared.
The other great thing about the neutral infusion was that it actually made the crazy teal rooms a little less crazy. In fact, if I had a bucket of touch up paint, I would totally keep them this color forever.
Obviously there are some paint colors that just need to die though.
And yes, I let my baby sleep in this room. I am hoping that it doesn’t scar him for life. If he has nightmares as an adult about getting trapped inside a can of salmon, we’ll know why.
This photo is probably the closest representation of the actual color…not too shabby, huh?!
Plus – it is soft. OH so soft. Like sometimes I lay down on it just to rub my face on the carpet. That is not a joke. It actually happens.
Okay – and now for the detail info…for anyone who is in the market for new carpet:
Carpet – Martha Stewart’s Winterthur in Ash Bark
Carpet Pad – Nike Step Ahead Carpet pad
Cost Breakdown:
CARPET 172.33 square yards (1551 square feet) x $16.70 per square yard ($1.86 per square foot) = $2877.91
PAD 172.33 square yards (1551 square feet) x $6.21 per square yard ($.69 per square foot) = $1070.17
INSTALLATION $97.00
REMOVAL / HAUL AWAY 1105 square feet x .10 per square foot = $110.50
TOTAL $4155.58
Ouch. That number still hurts. But in the end, I am so glad that we went ahead and got it done. It would have truly been a pain in the furniture-haulin-forearms to have to move everything in each room. Plus now Jeremy doesn’t complain about any smells (he has this hyper-active nose that drives me crazy) and I don’t have to worry about whether or not it was a brown spot from Will or one from a previous owner.
So that’s the whats-what when it comes to our new carpet! Looks good, right?
The carpet looks awesome, Katie! And I know you said you guys are leaving things as is for awhile buuuut…I would be painting Will’s room stat! It almost gives me a headache just looking at it! lol. Good luck painting over that wonderful color!
Wow! What a difference carpeting can make!! I LOVE your choice and am saving pennies to get rid of a previous owners teal carpeting choice too. Someday, someday…
Love the new carpet! Sounds like you guys made a great decision to get it done before you moved in! Your house already looks so much better with out the nasty stained crazy colored carpet from the previous owners! So way to go on that home run make over!
Love the those crazy paint colors especially the Jack and Jill bedrooms! So funny! 🙂
~ Ali
You are so dang funny!!! I love that master bedroom color too! Even just showing your furniture here and there in some of the pics, it is really fitting in naturally, like it was so meant to be there. Can’t wait to see what you do with that front sitting room downstairs.
What room do you have the bed set up in the 2nd to last picture?
We have teal colored carpet in our house too! Although, we ripped out what was in the dining and living room and the stairs to expose the hardwoods and just have the hallway left, the playroom and the sunroom. We want to put carpet down in the sunroom b/c we like to lay on the floor in there with the little ones (it is actually open to the living room and part of it). I wanted something neutral and love the trellis pattern rugs. Heck I have a flat weave rug from Shades of Light picked out for the living room and this would go great. I’m going to have to go check it out at HD. I want something soft too, so that’s good to know it passes that test. We just got a new puppy though who we are house breaking, so we may need to hold off just a bit more until he really has the hang of it.
P.S. The rug matches the side border of the blog,hehe!
Wow-ee! That psychedelic lavender carpet is crazy! Will’s room looks much less headachey without it! I like how the carpet goes well with the current teal wall colour in the other rooms- it will make it easier to put up with until you have the time and energy to paint in there 🙂 Great choice!
Your new carpet looks great! I’m so jealous! It does make the teal paint look a lot better! But the salmon paint is…a hot mess.
Looks great Katie! Love the new color of the carpet! Definitely makes the wall colors look better. Things are looking great so far! I think the worst is the salmon room! haha! Thanks for sharing!
That looks freaking awesome! We had stinky, dog pee smelling, teal carpet when we bought our house so I can completely understand how much of a difference new carpet can make. It’s been four months and I still rub my face on the carpet…
You’re lucky you only had colored carpet. We looked at, and rejected, a house for sale that had foam green living room carpet and worse, entry tile! And a lot of it! I expect they took a big hit on their sale price for that.
It’s amazing what a HUGE difference the new carpet makes! Wow.
Looks soooo good, and I agree- the teal on the wall looks WAY better with the neutral carpet. Also, I’m not sure what vacuum you have, but wanted to let you know to be very careful along the seams if you have a powerful vacuum… Ours is a Dyson, and it ruined our carpet seaming- yikes! 🙁 You know the whole $1000 mistake you outlined- yes, that’s me.. I can’t even blame it on my husband…
Ps. So glad we’re on the same page re: not bleaching your baby- ha! 🙂
That carpet is be – u- ti- ful! I think you chose a great color that will work with just about anything. The color of your master bedroom walls is really pretty – those people actually got a wall color right 🙂 Thanks for the cost breakdown – I know that a lot of people don’t like to talk about money, but I appreciate you showing us what it cost. I now have an idea what it would cost to get a similar carpet in our house. Thanks again!
Hey Katie, the carpet looks great! I’ve got a couple of questions for you about getting your carpeting from the Depot…We’re in the process of finalizing a 203k loan right now, and part of that loan money is going towards new carpeting. We’ve got to have licensed insured contractors, and my loan officer told me that the Depot was pre-approved with them. So here’s my questions:
– How was their service? It sounds like you were pleased, and it looks like they were pretty clean and efficient.
– It looks like you guys did a lot of homework before getting the carpeting laid down – would you say they were pretty competitive with other businesses for carpeting?
– Did you guys have to call the dump to get the carpeting hauled away, or did HD include that in their price?
– How was it stripping the carpeting yourselves? Pretty DIY, or would you not attempt it again?
THANKS!!! 🙂
Hey Katie, it looks great! I am so excited for your family and your beautiful new house. Been checking your blog every day to see if there are any updates. Can’t wait to see the rooms as you unpack and get slightly settled. Moving is so hard. Fun, but completely exhausting. Make sure you take some time for yourself…maybe you can give yourself a ‘spa day’ in that fabulous new master bath!
Wow, it’s amazing how the new carpet updates the entire house by a few decades!!!
Gorgeous! I definitely don’t think you will regret going ahead and tackling it.
I love the carpet! We’re having new carpet installed in our master bedroom and office next week and I can hardly wait. The current office carpet is red, as in fire engine red and it’s nasty. The previous owners paired it up with blinding bright yellow walls, black (yes, BLACK) baseboards and heavy equipment border along the top of the wall. It’s coming out asap. Thanks for sharing! I hope you’re feeling less stressed this week!
Congratulations to you guys on your beautiful new home. Not that I didnt love your old beautiful home. But can I just say that Im a newbie here and I totally love your voice on this blog. Love the carpet and am excited to see the adventures that you all have down the road!
Great choice, Katie! The carpeting looks great! One less thing to worry about – whew!
I’m loving this carpet! I’m bookmarking this post for the future when we own a house and are looking for carpets. I just wish the people who chose the new carpet for base housing thought about their choice as much as you did. We’ve only been in our house for 9 months, on brand new carpet, and it already looks worn. At least we’ll only be here for 6 more months!
Carpet looks great- and smart decision to do it before you put in the furniture. I’m amazed how those soft teal walls seemed to change after you replaced the carpet- it really is a pretty color.
I love it! I recently moved to the Atlanta area and desperately need my carpets cleaned. Have any recommendations?
Love the new carpet!! Looks so much better and CLEAN!!
WOW! What a difference that already makes! I like the subtle pattern. It makes it look more sophisticated. In a dream world, would you eventually like to do hardwood throughout the whole house? Or do you prefer carpet in bedrooms?
I LOVE the new carpet! It is nice to start fresh and clean and you can walk bare foot without stepping on those “brown spots” 🙂
I’m glad you invested in a nice pad…it definitely makes a huge difference.
I can’t believe how the new carpet really brings out the wall color in your bedroom! I liked it before, but the teal carpet was overwhelming. With the new color, it’s GORGEOUS! I’ve been tossing around painting our bedroom a similar color, but right now, it’s got lovely blue carpet so until we can put new flooring down, it’s staying a neutral cream. Loving the pics of the house! 🙂
I am a carpet in the bedroom kinda gal…and since the master has some hardwoods in the sitting area, I totally get my hardwood fix too 🙂
xo – kb
We ripped up our carpet in our house. It is definitely something you can DIY if you have the time and patience. I know with ours, the worst part was pulling out all the staples in the floor that were in the padding. We have giant rooms, so it took quite a while, but I just scooted around the floor with some pliers and pulled them out, one by one. Also did my stairs too. If you do DIY, definitely go one room at a time so you dont get overwhelmed. Since we wanted to leave the original hardwoods, we also painstakingly removed the tack strips too. We just pried them up with a flathead, used pliers to help pull tough ones out, etc. Just be careful- lots of sharp staples and tacks. Wear gloves!
Hi Stacy,
I know it’s kinda pricey but my mother swears by No-Res. She has white-ish carpet in her great room and with a six year old in the house, it’s bound to get really dirty…she has them come clean it and it looks brand new (plus no harsh chemicals!)
xo – kb
I love the new carpet! I’m sure the time and money have been and will continue to be totally worth it. Now you don’t have to think about that again for years!!
Quick question – Do you have pieces of the Canopy furniture collection from Wal-Mart? I noticed the Anywhere table (Will’s changing table) in another post and saw the bedside tables in this post. I’m really thinking about buying several pieces of this collection and would love to know what you think of it.
Hope things are a little less hectic now that you are in the new house!
eww! Do you feel like you are working in a German government office? Because I would hang a German flag in there just for kicks 🙂
xo – kb
Hi Brandt, That’s funny that you could get the loan money to go towards carpet…our loan didn’t approve that. Soo jealous!
And yes I was very pleased with their service. The lady at the HD store was very nice and she is the one that gets the credit for making everything happen so quickly. She got the guy out there to measure the rooms within 24 hours making the installation process that much faster. And the installers were very clean and efficient. I would know….I was in there peeking every two minutes (of course under the illusion that I was only there to offer them cold cokes!). I would say that the carpet we got was the absolute best price for something we absolutely loved. There are obviously better prices out there but in the end, we didn’t look at carpets just based on cost…we looked at carpets we adored and then compared prices. The old carpet and pads were taken out by the HD installers and hauled off by them…and that was included in that price. And they removed the blue carpet from the Jack room but did not haul it away to the dump…I think Jeremy sweet talked the lead guy with Little Debbies…and then they helped Jer take it down stairs.
Hope this answers all your questions!
xo – kb
Carpet=Amazing.
Brandt, My husband and I did a similar loan to help us pay for a for a few must-have remodels before we moved in. Be sure that HD or whoever you work with understands how the payments from the bank will work. We got the initial payment from the bank just fine but the final payment was contingent on all the jobs being done. So if the plumber finished a job at the beginning of the month and the electrician wasn’t done till the end of the month (plus two weeks for the bank “to process” the payment request), you can see how that leaves the plumber in limbo. In our case, bad weather kept pushing back a roof replacement…
Overall, still worth the hassle. Hope the renovations go wonderfully!
The carpet looks great! We’re debating using our tax return to get new carpet, and I’d wondered about a pattern. Looks great – love it, and love the color of the master!
I do have a question for anyone at all who can answer: we have carpet on our stairs, and it is SUCH a nightmare to vacuum them with our heavy dyson/wand. Anyone have a light weight alternative that works like a charm on stairs? (neutral carpet with a black dog = lots of vacuuming). We’d love to continue our wood floors up the stair case, but safety, cost, and the nearly complete rebuild of the staircase would likely keep us in carpet…
Looks beautiful!! Love the texture and color. We reinstalled some carpet in our basement after we finished our built-in bookcases and we both agreed we would NEVER do it again. It was super hard and took a long time. Some things are definitely best left to professionals! Here’s the info about our experience.
http://houseography.blogspot.com/2011/02/reattaching-carpet.html
Hey Laura-
I have a Golden Retriever and 2 long haired cats…I feel your pain. Our house is all hardwoods with the exception of our carpeted stairs. I have the Shark Multi-Vac, and love it. It works great on hard surface floors, but it also has a pet hair brush attachment which I use on the stairs and couch. The whole thing is light weight, but turns into a hand vac with a hose attachment so that you’re not lugging the whole vacuum around just to clean the stairs. I got mine at buy.com, but you might want to check out amazon.com too. I think it was around $50. Good luck!
looks great! did you sell your last house????
Love it somethin fierce!
Excellent! Thank you Heather!
WOW. I am seeing SPOTS! That salmon color is CR-A-ZY! The carpet looks great! We have something similiar in our house and LOVE IT.
Carpet looks great! It really calms down all of your rooms, even the ones with loud colors.
On a side note, if you had gone directly to Shaw to get your new carpet, you’d have been in my hometown! I’m always so proud when I can tell people that I’m from the Carpet Capital of the World….
Hi Sugar,
Yup – our master bedroom furniture (all but the bed) were part of the Canopy line. We loved it so much that we did get the console table for Will’s changing table. Word of warning though…the pieces that get delivered are sometimes broken…so be prepared for a couple trips back to Walmart!
xo – kb
Ugggh on the teal. We just moved into our new house at the very beginning of February and there is teal/seafoam carpet (very similar to what your pictures show) in the formal living room and dining room. UGGGGH. We’re going to do hardwood in those rooms but not for a year or two, which is paining me. Not easy to decorate around teal! PO had baby blue walls (uggggh). I am having trouble finding elements to pull it all together. Decorate around the teal (curtains to pull it in w/ the new neutral wall color?) or ignore it and do whatever for now. It *pains* me. GLad you were able to do a quick fix. Ours is at least in great shape, but I am not finding the color easy to deal with!
Thanks for the price breakdown. We are in the process of pricing out finishing our basement ourselves and the whole carpet issue is scary.
Quick question…did you not have to have them mess with your baseboard molding? Isn’t that extra sometimes?
love it katie! looks fantastic! now for the pink room to get the paint smack-down!
Love your carpet choice. What really struck me is how the new carpet really toned down those crazy walls! They went from schizophrenic to mildly manic depressive walls.
We pulled up our own carpet, too. And better yet, it wasn’t in too bad of shape, so we rolled it, set it out front with a FREE USED CARPET sign, and it was gone in a matter of hours. Free removal. Gotta love it.
Looks great- I love the pattern you chose. I looked at the same carpet at HD. How is it with spills? I could picture a slow-motion spill of red wine in my head…
http://styleandcentsability.wordpress.com/
Looks great! But ouch on the price tag!
It looks amazing! And I’m pretty sure I’d be snuggling up to it as well! The pattern is awesome and gives it such a high end look.
I love your carpet! We are *almost* to the carpet stage in our basement and just checked out some Martha Stewart samples the other day, we were looking at the twist style, but I love the look of yours so much better! Do you think it would be soft/cushy/comfy enough for a basement??
What a difference that carpet makes! I actually like the color of your master bedroom now. We bought a similar Martha Stewart carpet, and it ran in a couple of spots the first two years we had it (from vacuuming, kids, dog, etc.), so be careful! I agree with that other poster – Will’s room next (easier said than done, right?).
love the new carpet! And I cannot help but remember when we bought our first house and were tearing out all the carpet… My husband said that carpets were like underwear… You would never wear anyone elses used! Lol. Yeah I married that. 🙂
Your confession of laying down and rubbing your face on your uber-soft carpet had me rolling because when I bought my living room rug from Home Depot…at the store, it got the shoes off toes test first…then I rubbed my face on it…once it passed both tests, it came home with me and I’d lay down on it all the time just to run my fingers and toes through the softness…it was short shag but amazing!
Thank you so much for sharing. I’m actually in the market for new carpeting and this post was very helpful. I will have to check this style out at my local HD.
Looks awesome!! I love the neutral color. We have a really light (almost white) carpet in our house and I hate it!! With a 17 month old daughter I’m always using Resovle carpet cleaning (works great btw). It shows every little stain and it drives me nuts when I find new ones! So, smart choice going neutral…hides a lot of stuff:)
Oh, it’s just fabulous. One of my favorite posts: great photos, funny lines, I LOL several times, and the carpet looks super duper great! That red room is unreal, ouch. But the teal looks awesome! The cost is pretty steep, but then you did have A LOT of carpet installed! The house is lookin’ great. A bit big for my taste, but you’ll make it look super duper! (Just felt like writing that twice.)
The carpet looks great! What a difference it makes…although there is no amount of carpet that can make that salmon color ok.
On a somewhat unrelated note…I know that you said that you are going to embrace the mess for a while. Do you plan on putting will’s room back together? Are you planning on using the same theme? I loved will’s room so much.
Love the texture and color of the carpet! Nothing’s better than the feel/smell/clean feeling of new carpet!
We have a few of the Canopy pieces, too (as I saw you have in the Master & used to have in the little guys room). We’ve been quite happy with them. I know that the dark wood has seemed to show wear with knicks, but for the price I don’t think you can beat it.
Now that whirlwind is over…hope you and your family are enjoying getting settled!
I bet you were scared to walk barefoot on those old carpets….I have a little one and I can’t imagine him crawling around on the old rugs.
The new carpet is FABULOUS!
Sometimes…I wonder what people are thinking when they paint walls! CRAZY!
http://www.wom-mom.com
I love the new carpet!! It looks so great with the wall color in the master. Love the new page design btw.
Katie – Did the install of the carpet scuff up your baseboards? When we had carpet installed, we had to repaint ALL of our baseboards which was a lot of work. Just curious if that is common?
That is some really great looking carpet! I love the color, too; it’s light and neutral enough to go with any wall color, but it’s still warm and cozy looking. How does Will like it? Hoes he rub his face on it, too? 😀
What would you have done if you didn’t have a large circle driveway?? I wonder that since lots of people live in the city or have no driveway.
I know it never works, but it might be possible to color match to the existing wall and save painting it. Just a thought.
Love the carpets!!! Looks great!!! But this is a random question-We are currently searching for a PB couch. I was just wondering what color and fabric yours is? There are so many to choose from!
I really like your carpet choice (and I’m not typically a big carpet fan). It looks great!
I thought of that Emily – and probably will try it in at least one room…but honestly, these muted teal walls are the least of my color worries 🙂
xo – kb
Hi Addie,
Ummm…don’t rightly know. We bought ours from the outlet so there was no choosing colors or fabrics for us. I imagine that it probably just the white twill though 🙂
xo – kb
Seriously Robin! I always wondered that too! I guess that the rooms probably aren’t as big in a city apartment (I say that without any knowledge of city apartments…and only based on info given to me by the walls at Ikea who say “Live in the city? Here’s how to decorate 400 square feet!”)…and so the carpet installers probably don’t have to use as much?
I’ll have to ask carpet installers that question next time I meet some 🙂
xo – kb
Will is crazy about it. He even tried to take a nap on it once…something that he never did anywhere in our old house!
xo – kb
Yikes! No that didn’t happen to us but what a pain in the patootie! Sorry to hear that happened to your baseboards…
xo – kb
Hi Rebecca,
Actually we have his crib and some furniture in there but nothing is ‘back together’. And I think I might go completely different on the nursery. I loved that room so much I think recreating it would be…not the same…not bad, just not the same. And since nursery decor is for the mom anyway…I thought that maybe going in a different direction would give me some closure 🙂
xo – kb
It looks amazing, almost like sisal! I love it. Nice choice.
Ok. Please post more pictures of your brother. He is just oh so nice to look at! I may or may not have been scrolling through to find the one of you squeezin his cheeks. Oh dont get me wrong, I love your blog and read it every day:) Its just a little distraction is always nice…
Wow, the new carpet made a huge difference! Great color choice. I did wonder about the salmon explosion room…is there a teal cast around the baseboards on the right and left wall or do I just need to adjust my monitor? Or perhaps teal is just burned into my retinas…
Too bad you don’t have the touch-up paint- you’re right the color is really great with the new carpet. The pattern on the carpet adds a lot of texture to the room too!
You are probably right about recreating his old room. It probably wont live up to the original. Can’t wait to see what you come up with. I can’t imagine you will be living with that salmon color on the walls for too long.
Hi there – the carpet looks great! You have great taste!
This is off topic, but what version of Photoshop do you use? I’m thinking of giving it a shot and want a suggestion on where to start. I don’t want to just get Elements if the full version will be more useful later! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Katie, Nice choice on the carpet. I want to reiterate what some others have said. Thank you for posting a price breakdown. As someone who has recently moved into a new house and has many projects ahead of her, it helps to have some idea of costs. Contacting people for estimates can be tiring and tedious. I appreciate that you posted this! When you go into the stores you forget about the cost of padding, and haul away. Anyway, looking forward to your future renovations and tweaks. Enjoy your blog!!
I have Photoshop Elements and CS4. I used Elements for a very long time and most of the things that 90% of the normal population need are on that program…if you think that you’ll go into photography or whatnot…then CS4 is faster for me…but I wouldn’t dare say that I would pay that much for it (I got my copy from a friend!).
xo – kb
Oh my goodness that pink room with purple carpet… really who does that?! Some people are so weird!!
The new carpet looks fantastic!!
That price…. whew… hurts me to look at it!
It looks great – new carpet is the best!
I think it’s so kick butt that your carpet pad was made from recycled tennis shoes!! I want to do that in my next house!!! Everything is looking so much better with a blanket of nice neutral new carpet! Congrats on your new place!
Super helpful! Thanks very much!
Wow, too funny…I was looking at HD carpet the other night and picked out this exact same one. I will need to have it seamed also. I was trying to limit myself to carpet that came in 15 foot widths to avoid a seam, but in the end, I kept coming back to the Winterthur
Yours turned out beautifully! I’m glad to hear you had a good experience with HD (I was worried about using them.) Please keep us updated on how it holds up.
Hi Katie! I love your site (and your name!)
I loved that you had such a great Home Depot carpet experience. So much that I went there two days after you posted it to look for carpet for a house I recently purchased (first time homebuyer!). I must say though, my experience was FAR from your’s.
It started out great – but then took a dramatic turn and tonight I’m returning to battle for my money back so I can go elsewhere (which really stinks because I loved the carpet I found). My Home Depot was great to start, and then here at the end they’ve been very sneaky and unwilling to help. They wanted to push out my installation to 6-7 weeks after telling me to go ahead and tear out my carpet (being that the previous owner’s pets soiled the stuff that was in there, I was going to have to tear it up myself). With that timeframe, it would be 3 months before I’d be able to live in my house.
I hope I can find something great wherever I end up going for my carpet, and I hope your other readers don’t have the same woes if they choose Home Depot as their carpet destination. I’m sure my situation was pretty isolated, but this experience has really tainted the way I feel about HD 🙁
Katie
Bummer Katie. Sorry you had such a total opposite experience. At least you still have Lowe’s though, right?!
xo – kb
Did you replace the carpet on the stairs too? I’ve heard that can be tricky, but I suppose easier than making the whole stairway hardwood. Seems safer, too.
Nope – we left that for now…we are gonna do some research down the line and see what we can do for the stairs but for now, yes it is staying as is and it really does make it safer (especially with a little one who is obsessed with climbing up them!)
xo – kb
Hi Katie!! Do you guys have pets? I just ordered this exact same carpet for our basement and I’m a little concerned that our dogs’ toenails could pick at the little loops in the middle of the pattern… am I being crazy??! I just couldn’t go the “traditional cut pile” carpet route. And I hear the pattern is definitely better than burbur… any thoughts? Have you seen yours loops get picked at all?? Thanks!
Hi Michelle,
We don’t have any pets…but we do have unkempt toenails…and so far, no loops have been harmed. Maybe you could get the sample from the store and bring it home for a little test?
Wish I could be more help!
xo – kb
Hi Katie,
I love your Martha carpet and am so pleased to find a real life review of it. My husband and I are considering the Lindenwald II carpet by Martha. It retails for approx. $2.40 per square foot at our HD and is one of the least costly in the Martha line. Questions for you: (a) Do you still like your carpet? and (b) How did you get such a great price of $1.86 per square foot?
Thanks in advance for your opinion and help. You have such a beautiful home!
Best,
Amy
a – yes. we still love it. so far we have had zero complaints.
b – it was on sale. we didn’t haggle or anything 🙂 must be the luck of the draw.
xo – kb
Katie, thanks for taking the time to reply. Home Depot did our carpet measurements this morning and, thanks to your input, I am feeling really good about our choice of carpet. We’ve lived with grungy, stained carpet since we moved in seven years ago so I am beyond excited to have a finished second floor. Yippeee!
It looks great. Can I use some of your photos for illustrating seams in a power point presentation? It is almost impossible to find photos with seams that are well done but still slightly visible any your photos look great and fit the bill exactly.
Sure! Go for it 🙂
xo – kb
Thanks!
hi! I read your blog all the time. my mom is looking for carpet and told me to go check out your blog! funny since she had no idea I read here. she found you on a google search.
but anyways. can you see the seams in the carpet now a year out? we want this carpet for our main living areas but there would have to be seams and we are just not sure about seams and how low to the ground the carpet is.
thanks for your time reading this.
-katie
I found this post by Googling “Nike Grind carpet pad reviews”… how have you liked that pad? I also didn’t know HD could use your existing carped pad! Thanks for sharing that!
So far, we like it! I don’t really have anything to compare it to…since we changed out all the carpet pads, there isn’t really a way we can do a test. I know that I did yoga in our bedroom on the carpet and it felt comfy on my knees (which are just terrible!).
Good luck with your new carpeting adventure!
xo – kb
Hi Katie,
thanks for this blog and this great post! My husband and I are in the midst of making this same decision (with walls just as horrible – including red/black splatter paint with a wallpaper border on top!). We are very interested in Martha Stewart carpet and I would LOVE to hear a further update on how you are liking it.
Thank you so much if you’re able to share an update! It looks so gorgeous in the pictures and I hope it is wearing well.
Tracy
oops – sorry, just saw that your previous response was from July, 2012. I first thought it was from 2011, hence why I was curious for an update. Sounds like it is doing well, even 1.5 years after installation. Thanks so much!
this only proves that the carpet is the most important element in any home.
Hey there, just saw your remarks on the Nike Step Ahead Padding. Over a year plus later, are you still happy with your choice? is there anything you would do differently? i have to order the padding and am completely confused by the padding. all comments would be great.
thanks! Looks great by the way!
We still love it. I don’t have much to compare it to so I don’t know what exactly I could say.
xo – kb
Hi there, here we are a year later, can you tell me how the carpet is wearing? Any words of wisdom for us?
We are thinking about installing the same thing. TIA!!
Micheline
We still love it. We only have it in the bedrooms so we don’t wear on it alot but in general, we still like the look and the way it cleans up 🙂
xo – kb
Hi Katie, we are doing the same thing with our house and I found a few reviews on HD website about cracking noise with the Niki step ahead padding. Did you notice anything like that with the pad you installed? Also, did the installed remove the old tack strip when they install your carpet or they used existing ones?
Thanks!
Sorry Grace…I have no idea if they removed the old ones or not and I have not heard any cracking noises or any other noises either from the pad.
xo – kb
I ran across this carpet at Home Depot and love it!! My only concern is the softness. I wonder if its just the samples that are a bit scratchy??? Did you notice this? I did a quick Google search and came across your Blog and you mentioned how soft it was. Or I am wondering if over the years they may have changed manufactures or material. The back of the sample says ANSO BCF Nylon Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much.
Ours is definitely not scratchy…hmm…it’s been a few years so I don’t know what our is made of or if it is different.
xo – kb
Wow these carpets are incredibly awesome , I always wanted to have such kind of carpets for my room floor. It will look more pretty if we match our room color and carpet color.
I’m looking at getting this carpet now. I have read several posts about it unraveling and wearing out quickly. How has yours held up now after 5+ years? It looks really nice.
It has had only one spot where it seems to be pulling away…and that is in our boys room where it meets the door threshold…soo that could be an installation thing or a boy thing…probably not a quality issue…and it’s a couple small threads and I can snip them easily. There are a couple areas that are definitely more matted down than others…like the hall to our bathroom…but I also think this could be due to wet feet and being a high traffic area. That being said…ours has held up well but they are in bedrooms…not exactly used as much as a living room or well used room/hall. I think we are very pleased with it but we are comparing it to the average carpet life of 3-5 years.
xo – kb