SO what if I buy a 11ft by 16ft piece of carpet from a store and bring it home and staple it to my wood floor? Could tha possibly work? How do you install carpet? I was thinking of Pepto=Bismol pink for my carpet choice. Mmmm Bismol.
If it’s a square or rectangular room and there are no doorways or hallways to work around, then you should be okay. But don’t staple. Ideally you should line the perimeter of the room with tackstrip for securing the carpet down. I suppose if you had to you could make do with small tacks. You could also glue it down, but that’s messier and stinkier.
Be sure to put down a pad first. If you need to cut the carpet, draw your cuts on the back with pencil and use a boxcutter-type knife. Measure twice, cut once.
Once upon a time, I carpeted a tiled room with cheap carpet held down with double sided tape. It was not pleasant.
I’d recommend you just get a big area rug and not worry about tacks or adhesives. Take my free advice for what it’s worth.
Carpet layers have special tools they use the stretch the carpet they lay. If it’s not stretched out properly, your carpet is going to “bubble”. I wouldn’t recommend laying wall-to-wall carpet by yourself.
You need that knee-kicking thingy to stretch it properly. This is a job better left for professionals. Trust me.
When I and some friends of mine (1 contractor and 3 DIYers) remodeled the youth building at our church we tore out everything to the bare metal walls and roof. We rebuilt from scratch. The stage, sound booth, cafe, drywall, tile, electrical - everything - we did ourselves. Except the carpet. Carpet done without the proper tools and knowledge is a recipe for disaster. Even the professional contractor among us did not feel comfortable laying the carpet. My vote is to have your carpet professionally installed.
If you can cover the floor in one peice and are in a town large enough to have a rents everything type of store then you can lay it just fine. If you have to join the carpet then get a pro 'cause that is a pain in the ass.
Do you have a finished wood floor or is it just plywood? If it is finished wood then pull that flooring up and save or sell it. Don’t carpet over it. Once you have the bare subfloor, either concrete or plywood, you put the tack strips down around the perimeter about 1/2" from the wall. Just use big nails for the plywood but if you have a concrete subfloor you will need to use a powder actuated nailer. This might not be legal in your area for you to use, check with the rents everything place.
Once the tack strips are down you use the knee kicker to stretch the carpet around the perimeter and hook the carpet to the tack strips.
Hometime’s carpet laying page has a really good overview of how to lay carpet and a few pictures of the process.
Depends in the cost/quality of the carpet. Cheap rubber backed and you can lay it over paper to stop it sticking. Don’t use glue but maybe some double side tape at the edges. The trickiest bit is cutting to make good fit, especially if you have shapes.
If it doesn’t have it’s own backing but is the more espensive say, hessian backed , then it needs separate underlay and stretching.
If you are not used to cutting then it can be an expensive mistake. Also stairs are most tricky and need experience.
If the wood floor is in pretty good shape, don’t ruin it by putting carpet on it. Get a large area rug and one of those rubber mesh things to keep it from sliding around.