Can I Move Carpet From One Room to Another?

Repurposing carpet is an option, but might not make as much economic sense as hoped. FInd out what to consider before repurposing rather than replacing with new carpet, from seams to padding to the cost of installation.

LESLIE: Liz in New Jersey is on the line and she has a kind of thrifty idea. She wants to reuse wall-to-wall carpeting? What’s going on?

LIZ: Yes. I have carpeting that is 20 years old but it’s in my living room, which hardly anybody – you don’t have to step on it to go through other parts of the house. And it looks fine. And I was wondering if I could have that taken up, because underneath is hardwood and I wanted to refinish it. But my carpeting in my bedroom, which is smaller, is worn. And I was wondering if I could put that carpet in the bedroom.

TOM: I don’t see any reason that you couldn’t do that. Pulling carpet up is pretty easy to do as long as it was put down correctly to begin with.

Now, I will caution you, if that space in the living room turns out to be not one piece of carpet but carpet with a seam in the middle of it, that seam could be your weak link. Now, that seam might not be obvious to you if it was done well to begin with but when you take the carpet up, you may find that it’s basically two pieces of wall-to-wall carpet seamed together with seam tape. And then if you try to move that piece upstairs, the tape could break apart because now you’re kind of disturbing it. And you may have a bit of a mess on your hands.

But I see no reason why you couldn’t reuse the carpet. It’s certainly possible. That said, I think the most expensive part of this project is going to be the labor, because you’re going to have to have a professional carpet installer do this work. And considering the fact that the upstairs bedroom is fairly small, the added cost of brand-new carpet might not really add that much to the overall project.

LIZ: Oh.

TOM: So think about the economics of this, OK? If you’re going to spend money on an installer, then it’s going to cost you X dollars to have them come in, take the old carpet out, cut a new piece to fit upstairs and move it upstairs. You know, how much more can the carpet possibly cost you, especially if you bought a remnant or something of that nature?

LIZ: Oh, I see. Yeah. I think it’s one whole, long piece. I really do.

LESLIE: It depends. Because, usually, the bolts of carpeting are 13 feet. So if you’ve got a run of the room that’s bigger than 13 feet, then you’re probably going to have a seam somewhere in there.

The other thing to consider is that 20-year-old padding might not be reusable, so you might have to get new carpet padding. Whereas if you got new carpeting, they’re going to throw in padding, for the most part. So, think of all those things.

TOM: Alright, Liz. Well, good luck with that project. We gave you some stuff to think about.