Replacing our RV Carpet–Part One

We are still in College Station ticking items off of our to-do list. One item was to take care of my medical appointments and since I am a veteran that meant a few trips over to the VA hospital in Temple Texas. I had a colonoscopy done and went through the normal (and disgusting) protocol necessary for the doctors to have their clear view :) Thankfully I was given a clean bill of health and will not have to do another one for five years.

With that behind me (no pun intended) I can focus on a larger chore which is the removal of our remaining original carpet and replacing it with new carpet. Last spring we began the process of reducing the amount of carpet in our main living space by converting to a Coretech Luxury Vinyl Tile. The plan is to replace the doghouse carpet, the bedroom and the small area on our slide out. Even though there is not much carpet to replace I have discovered that the prep work has been the worst part. Let's just say I learned to really hate staples

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When removing the existing carpet from the RV there are a few tricks. One thing to know is that when most RV’s are built they already have the carpet laid on the floors before adding any of the cabinets or furniture. That means you either have to remove all the cabinetry or use a carpet cutter to cut around the base of the cabinet to remove the carpet. The other trick is to use pliers to pull the old carpet from the floor freeing it from the staples. Otherwise using bare hands could result in puncture wounds from the many staples.

Once the old carpet was out I had to remove the old carpet pad. It is important not to scrimp on padding as the cushion feel of carpet is mostly due to this pad so upgrading the existing pad can make quite a difference!.. We were lucky in that we did not have to buy any padding since Dan and Merlene (our RV buddies at Betty’s RV Park) had enough left over from their recent carpet replacement. I cut and stapled down the new padding and after cleaning everything up I was ready to cut the new carpet.

We found our carpet in two different locations. We were looking for good durable carpet but didn’t plan to buy super high end carpet for the RV. We focused on having a 10 year warrantied carpet which was durable and fade resistant. We ended up with a Shaw polyester for the bedroom and slide which we purchased for the way low price of 99 cents per square foot at a Surplus Warehouse in Bryan. Then we bought a lower piled carpet remnant to redo the front cockpit flooring for 30 bucks.

Another carpet tip is to remove the old carpet in one piece being careful to cut it out in tact. Doing this allowed me to use it as a template to cut the new carpet to fit. I cut it an inch or so bigger on all sides to ensure a perfect fit. Once the carpet was cut I placed it in the bedroom to staple and trim it to a perfect fit. I worked from one corner by cutting and stapling the corner. Then I worked back slowly using a “knee kicker” to keep the carpet tight. I stapled along the edges using the knee kicker while trimming along the way and before long our new bedroom carpet was in place.We are both very happy with the result as it is so clean and plush. We love it…

I will discuss more in the next blog about the rest of our carpet placement and the process of "pimping our ride". It has been arduous and time consuming but we see light at the end of the tunnel...... 

NOTE: We are still in College Station, Texas for the month of April…