Carpets - renovation

[JessicaPeach]

We are about to move into an extremely tired old house. The roof is on its last legs and needs quite a bit of remedial works and preferably a full replacement. There have obviously been a lot of leaks in the past and probably currently so the house is quite damp. The carpets have all been in for a very long time, all very grubby. The house is a probate sale and has been left as is since April 2021 (including shopping that wasn't put away left on the worktops etc) so everything is stale and musty.

There is a lot of work to do all around the house, we will be repairing or replacing the roof, boiler and main bathroom asap to start with but my question is to do with the carpets (and a bit to do with the damp)

We have 3 small children, 2 of whom are under 2 and are all over the floor. Shall we get the carpets cleaned or replace with something really cheap for the time being? It's going to be a while before we can replace with 'good' carpet as will be doing each room as we go. I was thinking of getting something neutral for about £3.99sqm as I think the carpet is probably responsible for a lot of the mustiness and smell and I don't like the idea of my little ones rubbing their faces in it even when it's been cleaned!

My gut feeling about the damp is that it will massively improve once we move in and the heating is on and it's ventilated, along with the roof being fixed. We are having a damp survey done anyway.

I'm fixating on this at the moment, I don't move house well at all. What is the best approach?

Get rid of the carpet. If you can get them to get rid before you move in.
cheap carpet is good but fitting costs can be quite high so maybe only only do the rooms children will use. Old stairs can be dangerous without carpet

Get rid of the old carpet, it will have the damp smell In it.

This is what I'm leaning towards too. I think it will make the whole house feel a lot better straight away even if it's something really cheap.

I never see people talking about doing this though so I was doubting myself!

It’s also worth a quick coat of cheap emulsion either white or magnolia. Then everything feels so much better.

We are mid a similar renovation except we have had to do all the plumbing/electrics too and a load more structural work than I had hoped!

I would definitely get rid of carpet - our house smelt so much better when it was gone. If I was you I would replace with either cheap laminate or vinyl if you are doing other works for a while as they are so much easier to clean.

We are definitely going to strip every room asap. My dad is a decorator so we were planning on lining the walls and painting but depending on how bad the damp is we might just slap some paint on as you suggest. Will save us having to strip the walls a second time when we get round to replastering. I agree, should make a huge difference and it won't all seem so grim

It's difficult to know what to do when it's the whole lot that is so tired isn't it! If we have to replace the roof we will have a very small budget for everything else so whatever we can do to make it liveable in the short term while we slowly make our way around everything else will be great.

Hope the end is near for you, it will be a happy day for me when we get the kitchen done, which is the last thing on the list at the moment!

What age is the house and how are the floorboards?

You could sand and varnish the floorboards then get big cheap rugs.

Even cheap carpet can be fairly expensive as you will need underlay, gripper rail and someone to fit it.

We had the carpets cleaned , it made a huge difference

I almost wish the cleaner hadn’t let me wear the CSI glasses as he shone the special torch and I saw the stains in glorious colour 🤢
The smell went , most of the stains went , big , big improvement
However , they were good , wool carpets with good underlay ( plain cream , so fine to start with )
1980 s house , one carpet had to go , it was a brown and gold patterned monstrosity

We’re painting the walls , opening the windows , washing windows , sills etc

The bathrooms ( avocado and pink ) will be going , and until they do they’ve been cleaned down with Method bathroom spray ( no good ) fairy liquid and a sponge scourer ( made progress ) final move was bath being filled with hot water and lemon zing zoflora

1930s. The floors are suspended timber so will be pretty draughty. I think we will need the carpets for warmth really.

I'm going to get one that comes with free underlay and fitting (have used the company before) so will probably end up paying a little more than the £3.99sqm but I'm going to price up the options and see what works out best.

I feel a lot lighter for having a made a decision on this!

We have done similar and ordered and laid our own cheap lino in some rooms and made do with cleaning carpets and covering them up with offcuts and rugs in other rooms. Designer carpets is an online shop which sells roll ends. Cheap per square m but good quality. We have carpeted loads of rooms very cheaply with off cuts from them.

My son and DiL threw out revolting carpet and got inexpensive stuff, which was fine for quite a while. I’d get rid, especially with small people around.