Zone 7 doesn't have harsh winters. Sure some varieties are not hardy for zone 7 but many varieties are not heat and sun tolerant in zone 7 either. That a much bigger problem on the East Coast. I know the Pacific Northwest has great areas in zone 7 for rhodies. Since you can raise camellias, I am guessing you are on the west coast. I don't think your climate is much of a problem. I am guessing it is the soil and moisture. Rhododendrons need well drained, acidic, well drained, moist, well drained soil. The emphasis being on well drained and acidic is very important also. Droughts can be terminal to young plants. On the west coast, many plants get used to the Mediterranean summers, but when young they need some watering. In areas with poor conditions, usually a raised bed is used so the pH and drainage can be controlled. Again, I don't think the plant is the problem, I think it is the conditions.

Folks are saying berber with a "thick pad". The main concern here is that if you do have a thick pad, it's not one that gives much. Berbers, in fact, are usually installed over thin pad. There are fiber spun pads that could be a good option here, as they are thicker but do not have a lot of give. We used to install horse hair pad 20 years ago when I was a carpet helper. I have to believe the new nylon stuff is a lot easier to work with. (Not that you'll be doing it yourself.) We were leaning toward a berber for our basement with a couple reasons/concerns. #1. Berber seemed like the choice especially because of the heavy traffic areas around the game tables. #2. Some berbers can be seamed nicely along the length of carpet, but..... Our layout would basically have required some seams *across" the grain. Those seams are not easily hid and would have been in high traffic areas. If you do not have areas that will be heavily treaded on, and you know that there will be a lot of seams, then a plush is definitely the way to go. I ended up buying commercial carpet tiles for the reasons mentioned, plus the size of our basement would have produced a number of seams in a 12' width or a lot of waste in a 15'. So, I gambled on Mohawk commercial tiles. I'm still in the process of installing them. First impression on the tiles: Should have bought some with a heavier nap.

Been agonizing over this question for a while. Complicating issue is that we live in a retirement community (Sun City West, AZ) in a very open-plan home with tile floors throught and carpet in the living/dining area off the tile open hallway and in the 2 bedrooms. Tile and carpet are both 17 years old - no doubt carpet has to go but tile is pretty dated too. Younger retirees are moving in or buying for later and seeming to prefer to redo. So we don't want to spend a whole lot when we know that it will all probably be torn out later. However, the general thinking in many of these posts as well as with many realtors is that even a carpet allowance doesn't make up for the bad first impression buyers can get. I'm thinking more and more, as many realtors do, that even if a potential buyer might eventually want to retile almost everything, if the carpet looks good now, the buyer will say "I can easily live with this until..." The carpet allowance sounds good, but most of our buyers are moving from out of state and I think having to deal with carpeting/flooring issues could entail a lot of extra work and even an extra trip or two to get it all done, whereas finding a house that's not absolutely heart's desire but is move-in ready could very well get the sale. Thanks for the posts. We're like the original poster - we have pets and don't want to do anything now but won't be selling for a year or two. Think my focus will be to get the white tile grout deep-cleaned and sealed and do everything we can to keep it in good condition, then replace the carpet when the time comes with somewhat better than builder grade. For anyone else facing this issue down the road, we're trying to build a savings account just for "fixing the house to sell" so that when the time comes, the money will already be there. I'm getting carpet estimates just to have an idea how much we'll need and calculating what else we might do (replace shiny brass chandeliers, hollywood bathroom lights, etc.) and how much we'd be willing to spend to do it. Think we'll be glad down the road that we did this. Again, good posts and good day to ask my question about recarpeting that sent me here. Thanks.

The area rug would be AS LIGHT as possible. You have chosen a VERY dark floor. It will cause all of your wood furniture to 'disappear' into the floor. That gets super fun when you stub your toe for the umpteenth time in the middle of the night. In fact, the best rug colour is shown in your carpet. I would look for something in that colour range. It should be easy. All you need to do is take a sample of your current carpet (cut off a swatch when they remove the carpet) and go shopping. And I would make the area rug as BIG as you can. You will need to show off your wood furniture as much as possible. It won't be possible with the wood you have chosen. I would try to find something that sits underneath all of your furniture...kinda like your wall-to-wall carpet does now. If that feels weird to cover up all that new hardwood with a rug colour you just ripped out, you could always work 4 steps lighter with the wood (more gold = nice match to the gold in your furniture) so that you have several degrees of separation between the wood floor and the wood furniture.