Basement Carpet Woes

We have a huge finished basement in our house.  It is about 1200 square feet, which is great except when it needs work done.  Any job like painting or carpeting is huge, because of the size of the room.

The family we bought the house from installed new carpet in the basement right before we moved in, and I think they installed the cheapest bottom of the line carpet they could find.

It is a Berber carpet that has not worn well at all, and our dog’s long toe nails have snagged it a few spots which makes it even worse.  A few months ago we called a new york carpet cleaner and had the entire carpet cleaned, but it didn’t help much.

Then right before Christmas our sump pump failed, and we ended up with a minor flood in the basement.  We had to have a water damage firm come in and they pulled up the carpet in the wet areas, removed the pad and set up big fans to dry everything out.  The carpet dried, but we still have a big mess.  The insurance company will pay to have new pad installed and the carpet put back down, but it doesn’t seem to make much sense to re-install old worn out carpet.

So we priced new carpet and were not happy!  Even with the money from the insurance company, installing 1200 square feet of carpet is going to cost thousands of dollars.  So we have been getting carpet estimates and doing nothing.  Our basement flooded six weeks ago and we still have pulled up carpet and exposed tack strips, with furniture piled in storage rooms and everything in disarray.

So hopefully by Easter we will have done something!  Who knows, maybe when I do our taxes I will find out we are getting an unexpected refund and will be able to get the new carpet we want.  At this point we are just getting tired of tripping over the current mess.