My family has lived in the same house for 20 years. It was a new build when we first moved in, but now it’s endured five children, one grandkid, and a puppy.
As you can imagine, the carpet in our home got pretty gross over time, and it was well past time for us to replace over half of it.
Based on what we learned throughout the long and grueling renovation process, it may be another 20 years before we do it again.
Here are a few things I wish I’d known in advance.
We had more stuff than I realized, which made the prep work difficult.
Pulling up carpet and padding that’s been lived on for 20 years is messy.
That meant anything we didn’t want potentially covered in dust and debris had to be moved out of the rooms. Since we were tackling all the bedrooms, that also included everything in the closets.
I never realized how much fits in a closet until I was moving it all to a temporary home. We barely had enough room to store our belongings in other parts of our home during the renovation, so we got creative.
My teen also learned the hard way that it’s much easier to start getting rid of things during the packing process.
Instead, they ended up packing their stuff, unpacking it, then packing it back up for donation or storage.
Cars are great storage vessels.
My eight-seat Honda Pilot became a full-blown closet.
We stacked clothes from dressers in suitcases and laundry baskets, piled shoes in the footwells, and used the middle row of seats to keep everything on hangers.
Alternating the hanger hooks on the seatbelt meant everything stayed in place whenever we had to actually use the car.
We couldn’t paint our walls right before our carpet installation.
Since our decades of accumulated stuff would have to be moved out anyway, we also decided it was a great time to paint our walls and some doors.
The professionals told us we’d need to do this at least a week before the carpet removal flung dust all over. That time would allow the paint to fully cure and prevent it from getting messed up.
We originally planned on doing the whole renovation in two weeks, so once we learned this, that timeline had to change. It ended up taking about seven.
We unknowingly chose the perfect time of year for an installation.
Our professional installation was scheduled for early September.
We live in the Midwest, so luckily, that meant it was warm enough to use the garage as a storage space. On install day, everyone was also able to be outdoors to get out of the way.
None of that would’ve been a comfortable option during a frigid Chicago winter. Without knowing it, we picked the perfect time for the renovation.
The installers may not be willing to move all your furniture.
It’s worth looking up the specifics of your carpet-installation agreement before booking a service, especially if you have some large furniture pieces.
In larger rooms, our installers were able to move most of the furniture while they worked.
However, they weren’t allowed to move our beds because of some specific contract rule. We ended up having to figure out how to move and store those ourselves before the installers arrived.
One of the best things I did was create a note detailing where I’d packed our stuff.
By the time everything was packed up, stuff was everywhere (including in my car).
The living room and primary bath were full of primary bedroom furniture and boxes. The kids’ bathroom had beds and bookshelves. The garage and basement were full of boxes.
So, throughout the renovation, I kept a note on my phone called, “Where’s my stuff?” that had sections for each room that detailed where the furniture and boxes from it were in the house.
This note became invaluable when we moved everything back in, ensuring we knew where it all went before unpacking.
It was one of the best things I did throughout the renovation.
Putting all of our stuff back felt like the most difficult part of getting new carpets.
Although my note came in handy for locating items, putting everything back in its place felt like moving into a new house.
Even though all the stuff came out of our space, it was a bit of a headache trying to figure out how to make everything fit again. It reminded me of when TSA searches your zipped-up suitcase, but afterward, it won’t close.
Despite a lot of purging during packing, there somehow didn’t feel like we had enough space for our stuff.
I wished we’d more closely read the fine print of our carpet warranty.
Since we have a dog, we invested in a pet warranty. About a month after installation, our dog had an upset tummy and stained the new carpet.
Unfortunately, this was when we learned the nitty-gritty details of the warranty — for example, it’s only valid if the carpets are steam-cleaned every 18 months. We also can’t use carpet spray to clean stains if we want to keep the warranty.
These annoying specifics were a great reminder to always read the fine print before signing something.
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