Moving into your first home in an exciting time, but there's often not a lot of money left over to tackle renovations. The first thing you need to decide once you get your belongings unpacked is what you want to tackle now, and what changes can wait until you have some more money in the bank. If you can't stand the colour of the existing carpet in your bedroom, for example, you may think that a quick, cheap fix is to buy an off-cut piece of carpet and lay it over the top of the existing one. However, this may not work out as well as you would like, so you need to look at the pros and cons of this idea.

Pros Of Carpet On Top Of Carpet

There are two main benefits when you get new carpet laid on top of existing carpet:

  1. You are going to quickly hide the carpet you don't like to look at.
  2. The carpet that is left underneath is going to act as a cushion to the carpet that sits on top. This extra cushioning will provide some relief from the foot pain people with arthritis feel after spending long periods of time moving around on hard floors.

Cons Of Carpet On Top Of Carpet

Of course with every list of pros, there has to be a list of cons for the idea:

  1. To keep the carpet in place, you are going to need to use tacking strips. These pieces of wood have small nails pointing upwards. The strips are nailed to the floor, and the new carpet is kept in place by the upwards nails. If you choose to remove your top layer of carpet at a later time, you will not be able to remove the tacking strips without damaging the carpet underneath.
  2. The height of the two carpets laid on top of each other may be too high to fit beneath the door to the bedroom. Your options to fix this include shaving the bottom of the door to increase the size of the gap or removing the existing carpet that sits beneath the door.
  3. If you do not use tacking strips to keep the top layer of carpet in place, you risk it moving over time. This movement can cause the carpet to bunch up which then creates a tripping hazard.

If you really hate the carpet in your bedroom and you don't want the temporary option of buying a large area rug to cover it, you are going to have to pay for new carpet to be professionally laid in the bedroom. This option is a worthwhile investment in your happiness if you plan to remain in the home for a long time. 

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