Do I need to move furniture before new carpet?

Why an empty room, and not just a cleared one

Carpet is not laid in patches. The old carpet and cushion come out across the whole floor, the tack strip around the perimeter gets checked and replaced where it needs it, new cushion goes down, and then the carpet is stretched tight from one wall to the opposite wall in a single operation. There is no half of the room to work in while the other half holds the furniture. A dresser standing in the corner is standing on the exact square feet that have to be cut, stretched and tucked.

Shuffling things from side to side does not solve it either. Anything moved onto a floor that is mid install has to move again, this time across new carpet, which is the surface you least want to drag a bed frame over. Closets count as part of the room. They get carpet, they get tucked at the back wall, and they are the most forgotten space in the house on install morning.

The things a homeowner is best placed to handle

Some of this nobody else should be touching, and the rest simply goes faster when the person who knows where it belongs does it.

• Breakables and anything sitting on top of a dresser, shelf or mantel. Framed photos, lamps, plants, the things that do not survive a jostle.
• Electronics. Photograph the back of the TV before you unplug anything, coil the cables, and put the components somewhere they will not be stepped on.
• Closet floors, and the shelf above them. Shoes, bins, luggage, wrapping paper, the vacuum. All of it has to be out, because the closet gets carpet too.
• Under the bed. Storage boxes and everything else that has quietly accumulated down there over the years.
• Drawers, wardrobes and bookcases. Emptying a dresser turns an immovable object into something two people can carry, and it protects what is inside.
• Anything private or valuable. Medication, documents, jewelry, an urn, an heirloom. Handle those yourself and you never have to think about them again.
• Floor length curtains. Pin them up or take them down, because they hang exactly where the tack strip and the tucking tool need to be.
• The dog and the cat. Doors get propped open all day, and a startled animal finds an open front door fast.

The pieces that make the answer different from house to house

Rooms are not equivalent, which is why this question has no single answer that would be true everywhere. A pool table has to be broken down by somebody who can level it again afterward. A waterbed has to be drained. An aquarium has to be emptied. A gun safe is a specialist lift. Adjustable bed bases have motors and power supplies hanging off them. Wall anchored bookcases and closet organizer systems are screwed to studs and stand on the floor at the same time. Anything with gas, water or a vent line behind it is a licensed trade question rather than a lifting question, and some manufacturers will not honor a warranty if their own technician did not disconnect the unit.

Then there is scale. One bedroom is a different conversation from a whole upper floor with four bedrooms and a hall, and whether the house has a garage or a room that is not being carpeted to stage things in changes the plan completely.

Where the answer for your job actually comes from

What is included on a given job is settled before install day, not at the door. Raise it at the free in-home measure, while somebody is standing in the room and can see the piano, the aquarium and the gas range for themselves, then confirm it when the install is scheduled, which is the step where preparation expectations get agreed and written down. Our eight step process puts both of those in order. If you would rather just ask, call 636-332-0654. People ask it at the counter every week, and it has a straight answer for your house.

A sensible order to work in

Start with the closets, because they are the ones that get forgotten and they hold more than anybody expects. Then everything sitting on top of everything. Then the small items and the electronics. Empty the drawers and shelves next. The big pieces go last, once they are light enough to move and there is a clear path to move them along. Strip the beds while you are at it. Leave a clear route from the front door to the room as well, because a roll of carpet is long, heavy and does not turn corners. On a job covering several rooms, ask which room is first and roughly how the days are likely to run, so you are not living out of boxes in the whole house at once.

Putting the room back together

Lift furniture back in rather than dragging it, particularly anywhere near a seam, and put wide felt glides under narrow legs so a thin metal foot does not bruise fresh cushion. When the room is ready for normal use is worth knowing before you start carrying things back in. An empty room is also the easiest time to open the windows and get air moving, which is the one thing that genuinely helps with the new carpet smell. And if you are still choosing, the carpet page covers fiber, pile and cushion before any of this becomes your Saturday.