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Buying carpet for house that is for sale

13 years ago

We are selling our house that is located several hours from where we live. It has very high end carpet in the bedroom. It is whitish in color and does not show one day of wear despite that it is 13 years old. For the 12 years we lived there we had it professionally cared for every 3-4 months with a non-soapy cleaning technique. It feels good and looks good EXCEPT...where we just removed the bed. The bed was a large antique and where the legs were, it has ruined the carpet. I'm not just talking indentions. For some reason, a reddish stain transferred from the bedpost to the white carpet. Without a doubt it is now ruined.

My question is, what is the cheapest way to replace it? Are the box stores really more expensive? Will I have to replace the padding? Since the carpet is in perfect shape, why would the padding not be? (There were never any animals peeing on it or anything.) How much should I expect to pay? The room is 18' by 15' 7".

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Comments (6)

mike_home
13 years ago
Do you have any carpet left over from the original installation? If yes then perhaps the areas could be patched. I assume the new owners will be putting a bed in the same location so it will probably not be noticeable or have any foot traffic. Another idea is to patch it with the carpet from a closet and replace the closet with a another carpet of similar pile height.

You can probably find a good deal on a carpet at a box store. If you the padding was good quality it probably does not need to be replaced. Padding is about $3-4 per square yard. It is not a big savings in cost.
steve_o
13 years ago
Your real estate agent probably is urging you to put in new carpet (I know ours have) on the theory that you'll get dinged for the stained carpet on an offer for the house.

But I would suggest that your buyers might have a preference other than white, and that maybe instead of replacing otherwise-nice carpet with some coarse-feeling cheap stuff from your local carpet place/box store, you leave it as it is.

That way your buyers can choose to put their bed where you had yours and enjoy nice carpet -- especially if it's the only place in the room the bed really fits -- or not. Or they can choose a color more suitable to their lifestyle than beige. Or choose some other material completely.

I'm going to guess those stains not the only mark on the house (after all, people lived there, even if they were careful). And I'd feel better as a buyer knowing that I could put in what I wanted without tossing a brand-new floor covering or having to live with it till it wore out.
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pharaoh
13 years ago
I wouldn't replace it. Set aside a discount for replacing the carpet. The buyer may put in hardwood or some other floor covering.
ncamy
Original Author
13 years ago
I had thought about the closet carpet solution; that might be something to look into. Actually our agent doesn't want us to do anything, but the one consistent feedback we have gotten is that the house is pristine. I am devastated by this one flaw. Also most likely a new owner would not place the bed where I did. I had our bed, which amazingly was only a double size, but antique and a foot longer than normal, against the short wall. The other wall is sized perfectly for a king sized bed. We had a sofa against that wall. So the bottom line is the "stained hole" will show.
brickeyee
13 years ago
If the same carpet is in a closet you may be able to steal some from there to patch the larger room, then put something compatible in the closet.
ncamy
Original Author
13 years ago
Has anyone out there ever done a patch? How much should that cost? At what point would it not be a financially good tradeoff? For example, I will need at least four "holes" repaired and would then need to recarpet the closet which would be at least 12 square yards.

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