Lowes Carpet

I just had new carpet installed in the baby's room from Lowes and I thought I'd give everyone a little review of how the whole process went.

Picking out carpet didn't take long. We didn't have a lot of choices because we were in a time crunch, so we pretty much picked something in-stock.

Next, we had to have an estimate. I have a square room and it's not very big. Measuring was not a challenge whatsoever, but they insist on having their guy come out to measure just to make sure you can accurately read a tape measure or something. Ok. Fair enough, I know there are actually people in the world that can't use a tape measure. You pay $35 for the estimate and that money comes off the cost of the job if you order. Fair enough - they give you a price based off of your measurements too so it's not really a surprise when you order.

After the guy comes out to measure (who FYI works for himself, not Lowes) it takes him a few days to return the measurement to Lowes. We bought the estimate on a Saturday, got the call from the guy on Monday to come measure the same-day. He returned the measurements a few days later and I got the call from Lowes on Thursday.

Next, you have to go back into the store to sign more papers than you would need to take out a mortgage. No really, it's ridiculous. You fill out the contract and then pay for the carpet.

After that you wait again. We bought the carpet on Saturday because of snow and then got a call from the installer on Monday night. The soonest opening was Friday. I repeatedly asked if it would be the same guy installing the carpet that did the measurement. Yes, I was assured it would be. However, I opened the door Friday to find 2 random men I didn't recognize wearing Lowes gear. Awesome - great start to the day. I'm a heavily pregnant stay-at-home mom with 2 little girls and one on the way, so having strange men into my home with no warning is kind of irritating. I mentally go over where all the sharp objects are in the house and gauge the size of the men to determine how to best reach the main arteries should they turn out to be psychopaths.

Still, I have them inside and they go ahead with the installation. It took about 30 minutes total and they vacuum when they're done. The cheap in-stock 99 cent stuff isn't as bad as we imagined, in fact it's pretty close to what was down originally. We went with the cheaper pad too and it is completely fine. I don't recommend spending more in a bedroom than you absolutely need to since the in-stock options were just fine.

So that's about it - if you order carpet from Lowes, their in-stock stuff is surprisingly good quality (especially compared to Home Depot) and it will take about 2 weeks start to finish. The worst part is dealing with 3rd party installers and all of the inconsistencies that come with that.

So, the whole process took