Inexpensive Ways to Carpet Your Home
Carpeting your home can be a rather costly project. If you are the
do-it-yourself type, you can install carpet yourself to save on installation
costs. If you want to save more money, you can use carpet samples instead of
buying the more expensive ones.
Carpet samples are new carpets since they are not really used carpets. Carpet
samples are actually smaller carpets, which you can by for less than a dollar
per square piece of carpet. Carpet samples are available at closeout or
clearance sales as well as at the hardware and carpet stores in your area.
The number of carpet samples you'll need depends on how big a room you are
planning to cover. You will also need staples to hold the carpet samples
together. Carpeting your home or any other room using carpet samples may affect
your home's resale value. So carefully consider this style of carpeting your
home. Carpet samples or squares are unusual so you may want to keep this style
of carpeting in the basement or playroom and not on the major areas of your home
(e.g., living, kitchen, bedrooms and guest rooms).
Carpet samples or carpet squares would look creative in a child's playroom. You
can use carpet samples in varying colors and patterns. The playroom is an area
of the home where spills and stains are likely to occur, you can easily repair
the carpeting -- you can just remove the carpet square that has the spill or
stain and replace it with a new one.
Should you decide to install carpet samples yourself, you will need a carpet
knife and staple gun. It is recommended that you use the 5/8" staples. Place the
carpet squares side by side and staple them together on their sides. Staple the
pieces together in such a way that the staples are not noticeable from the
surface. You can also use carpet tape instead of staples to hold carpet squares
together. Carpet tape is ideal if you are not putting a padding underneath the
carpet samples.
If you are in a creative mood, lay out your carpet squares and see how the
pieces look before stapling or taping them together. This will allow you to come
up with some sort of a pattern or design for your carpeting. This way, you can
also easily cut the carpet pieces that are placed by the walls or other
obstacles. With carpet squares, you only actually spend a dollar or less should
you make a mistake in cutting a carpet piece.
It is also a good idea to have an estimate of how many carpet samples or squares
you will need to cover a particular room. Once you have this estimate, you can
start shopping around the stores to get the carpet samples or squares you need.
Carpet samples come in different sizes from store to store. However, carpet
samples are typically 18x18 inches. As much as possible, find carpet samples
that have the same dimensions so you will be able to lay them out easily. |
