Do-It-Yourself Carpet Installation

Through the process of installation, make sure to wear safety gloves and eye protection.  Most of the more specialized tools you will need (Carpet or Seaming iron, Knee-kicker, Power stretcher) can be rented from a carpet manufacturing company or a tool rental shop.  The other necessary materials and tools are common and inexpensive.

1. First, to figure out how much carpet you need, take a measurement of the width and length of your room.  By channeling your inner geometry teacher, you can figure out the area of your room by multiplying these two lengths (and you thought you'd never use all that math you had to learn).

2. After buying the right carpet for your room, you will nail down tackless strips around the perimeter of the room.  Tackless strips are lengths of metal or wood with rows of pins on to which the carpet is attached.  The pins should be facing the direction of the wall.

3. An underlay pad is then cut and put down.  Based on what type of carpeting you have chosen, you will go with a felt, foam, or rubber underlay; a carpet manufacturer can advise you in this choice.  The pad should be stapled every six inches and there should be as clean a seam as possible between the strips.

4. The carpet itself should be cut with four to six inches extra on each side.  Use a utility knife to cut the carpet from the backside.  Try to place seams in inconspicuous areas, and keep the pile running the same direction.  If you have a patterned carpet, you will need to be extra careful to get the pattern to match up correctly.  Do your best, but know that seams in either solid or patterned carpet are almost always somewhat visible.

5. To cut a flush seam, overlap the edges of the carpet pieces, leaving a few inches of excess where the piece meets the wall. Fold back the carpet at the overlapped seams and snap a chalk line to help ensure a straight cut. Now overlap the new edges. Using the top piece as a guide, cut the bottom piece.  If done correctly, you should end up with a nice, flush seam.  Place a strip of seaming tape under the new edges and activate the adhesive using a carpet iron.

6. Attaching the carpet at the walls can be fairly physically demanding, especially on your knees.  To begin, attach the carpet to the tackless strips in a corner.  Dig the teeth of the knee-kicker into the carpet about one inch from the wall and use kick the carpet forward so that it hooks onto the strip pins.

7. Once the carpet on either side of your original corner are hooked, use a power stretcher to pull the carpet tight to the opposite sides.  Once all sides and corners are hooked, you should "kick-fasten" the carpet, alternating sides and corners.  To finish, trim any excess carpeting at the edges and install any necessary metal strips under doorways.

More information on carpet