And we have carpet! Casa Pena is now move-in ready!

One of the first things we knew would need to be done at Casa Pena 2.0 was carpet.  The old green carpet was stained and faded and just plain gross.  I did a lot of research when I picked out our carpet at the last house and decided on a DuPont Stainmaster carpet from Home Depot which we love.  It holds up well, is extremely soft and cushy, and we get a lot of compliments on it.  However, I knew I couldn't go with Home Depot again after the experience we had with their contractors. (We'll just say they did an awful job, knew it, and decided to act like they didn't understand English when I confronted them about it.)  I decided I wanted to use a small company to install the carpet in this house, even if it cost a little more so Tyler and I shopped around a few local spots: Quality Carpet One, The Flooring Center, and Design Expo.  All were very helpful and knowledgeable, had installers on staff instead of contracting the work out, and were slightly more expensive than the carpet we had (which I expected and was OK with).  The problem was we couldn't find anything as plush and soft as the Stainmaster Carpet.
After doing a little more research I found that Home Depot lost the rights to sell Stainmaster carpet  (no surprise after my experience) and the only place to buy what we wanted was at Lowes.  I was skeptical of the big box store, but went in to check it out anyway.  They had the exact carpet and another carpet with a diamond pattern that I wanted for the family room, and were offering free installation, 10% off, and 6 months interest free if we opened a Lowes credit card.  The sales associate that sold me the carpet was very knowledgeable about all the products he was selling and remained in contact with me through the very end.  He may have single handedly changed my opinion of purchasing installed services from a big box store.  He knew this was a rush since we really wanted to get carpet in the house before the movers would be bring in all the furniture.  He even tracked the carpet daily (it had to be shipped from a carpet mill across the country) and called me with updates. 
He also gave me the contact info for the installer, JE Flooring in Gaithersburg, so that I could stay in contact with them and schedule the install as soon as the carpet arrived in their store. 
The family room got the Sanctuary Diamond pattern carpet and the entire upstairs got the Exhilaration pattern which is more of a dot pattern.

We were able to save a little bit of money by having Jeff rip out the old carpet and hauling it to the dump and by having the furniture brought in after the carpet was installed.  Lowes does offer both of these services for a fee.

Family Room Before:

Family Room After:

Here is an upclose shot of the pattern:

 Once Jeff took the carpet off the stairs I loved the look of the bare treads but they were just too slippery for a toddler and his future siblings:

The day of the carpet install I set up camp at the computer station in the kitchen. 

The guys were supposed to arrive between 8-10AM and showed up at 10:30.  I wasn't too happy about that, as I knew this was a big job and would take all day.  I was right, they were there until 8:30PM.  I guess they were late due to an in prompt to fishing trip?

They got to work right away and had the padding laid down rather quickly.  We chose to go with the 8lb Stainmaster padding.  Not only did it increase the warranty on the carpet by 10 years, but it also has a moisture barrier over the padding to keep stains from seaping into the pad and ultimately the sub floor underneath. 

You can see them rolling the carpet out to cut it on big tarps in the driveway.  I was lucky they came out this day.  The day before and the day after it was raining.

Rest of the house after:

Here is an upclose view of the pattern in the carpet upstairs: