Project House Update: Carpet, The Devil Inside Part I

This one is going to be a two parter. I know those suck, but guys, let's get excited! After almost two years, we finally have a functioning (and almost completed) living room!

And now, for my favorite teaser in the history of teasers:

We'll come back to that...

This first part will focus solely on the adventure that was about finally getting a floor back in the room. The second part will be about moving everything back in and honestly, setting up the room with some thought for the very first time.

Let's flash back to look at the best 'Before' pictures I have (because I 'used to be' terrible at this). Before any of this living room fun started. Here's how it looked in early 2013.

Over time, we painted and began working on the fireplace. At one point of the fireplace renovation, we decided the carpet and the corresponding tile border in the room had to go.

Our plan was to not worry about installing a new floor until we had finished all the tile work on the fireplace. It would suck to put in new floors and have them get damaged by some errant grout.

Well, back in June, I finally finished up the grout. {Sidenote: during the carpet installation, I noticed some grout work I had missed. I am too scared of screwing up the new carpet that I haven't attempted to fix it.} Since we were out of excuses and all the home stores had sales over Fourth of July, we ordered carpet!

We debated several different factors. I wanted something simple and durable with a short fiber. Dan wanted something soft, plush, and stain resistant. We compromised on a Stainmaster carpet from Lowes. I think the color is called 'Ballet', which is basically a darker version of the wall color of the room.

Buying carpet was a new experience for us. Apparently, you go to the store, do an initial quote based on the size of the room and the carpet you like, then they send someone to your house to do an exact measurement and layout, and then you have an official quote and you make your purchase. Three weeks later, the installers come to your house with big rolls of carpet and make it fit.

Now back to that pentagram...

If you're a fan of 'Supernatural' like me, you will recognize that as a devil's trap. A symbol that once a demon steps in it, cannot step out of it. So, to screw with either future us when we replace the carpet or whoever buys the house next, I bought a sample can of blood red paint (Behr's 'January Garnet'), found a great image of the devil's trap, and got to painting. I freehanded most of it and I'm quite proud of it. Once I explained it to the carpet installers, they thought it was funny.

In the installation, they nailed the tack strips around the edge of the room. It took a lot of hammering and banging and time to get around the curved edge of the fireplace. Then, they squirted some adhesive, stuck down the padding, and cut it to fit.

Then, they laid out the carpet...

...and stretched it taut. They could then tack it down on the sides and cut off the extra.

Here's a glimpse of the finished product. I basically had to toss Rusty into the room since he was intimidated by all the new smells.

There will be more finished pictures in Part Two.

But there's some back story as well. When they had finished installing the carpet, we realized that they had not put the seams where we had agreed upon. When the estimator came out to officially measure the room and give us a quote, we were careful to lay the seams where they would be covered by furniture. Where they positioned the seams were incredibly obvious and looked really bad. Since we had documentation showing where they were supposed to go, three weeks later, the installers came back out and redid the whole room. They were able to reposition the carpet and redo the seams so you can't see them now.

Because of all this, I really don't have any pictures of the empty room with the carpet installed. When the room was empty, the seams looked bad so I refused to take pictures. And when the carpet was finally fixed, I was so fed up with the room being empty that we immediately moved the furniture back in.

So, in the next post, you'll see it, just not in its bare glory. You'll see it in the context of arranging furniture, hanging art, and actually using the room for the first times.