We have a vacation home on a lovely lake. Recently. some friends bought a home near us on the same lake. Unfortunately. this home had not been very well cared for. When the parents. the original owners of the home died. the children and their families rotated vacations and weekends in the house. With no one family in clear charge of the house. maintenance tasks were neglected and the home started to look slipshod.



One of the first items on my friend's agenda after buying the house was to replace the floor coverings in the home. She was interested in putting some quality carpets in this home to really improve its appearance. As it happened. my friend was able to take possession of the home about a month before she had to leave her old home. This gave her the necessary time to get some things done before she actually had to live there. As soon as I went to see my friend's new house. I could understand what she meant about needing good quality new carpets. The living room floor was covered with wall to wall carpeting that had seen better days: years of neglect and wear and tear by a parade of families had left its toll on this carpet. though it may have been good carpeting at one time. It was completely discolored and stained by use. My friend had already visited a local carpet store and brought some samples home. She had agreed with the carpet store manager that she would pick a few that she liked and then he would come out an do the measurement and she could make her final choice.

My friend also wanted to replace the bedroom carpeting with quality carpets. They were not in as bad condition as the rest of the carpeting. but they were in such ugly colors that she could not live with them. This was going to be quite an expense but the installation of quality carpets was a long term investment that they wanted to make. so they decided to go ahead with it and just try to save money in other ways. The carpet layers were able to give them a better price on the installation since they did not have to move the furniture (there wasn't any in the house yet!). and they could further save money by taking up the old carpeting themselves. when they removed the carpeting in the living room area. they were thrilled to find that there were hardwood floors under the carpeting that was in pretty good shape. It mostly just needed to be cleaned and sealed. There was one spot with some water damage. but they decided to hide it under a piece of furniture for now. In addition to saving some money on the quality carpets they were planning to buy. they were very happy to have beautiful hardwood floors in this room. We went shopping for good quality area rugs and that was a lot cheaper than covering the entire living room floor in quality carpet.

Their lake house looks lovely now and the addition of carpets to the bedrooms gave them a fresh new look and feel. I'm happy that our friends could change their eyesore into a model home.