Does anyone have any ideas for the most cost effective way to carpet my house?

It seems a shame to cover a floor like this with carpet. Why not a series of scatter rugs and perhaps large decorative rugs in the larger rooms.

Around here, there is a warehouse that all the carpet installers go to and buy their carpet. They also install. All of it is at a fraction of the price. Also, if you ask around, you will find a carpet installer who does "side jobs". It is very hard work, requiring stretching tools and the like to be done right.

It depends on what your goal is for this house. If you plan on flipping it and making a few bucks, then I would go carpet. The reason being that a house with carpet in the bedrooms will sell ten times faster than one with laminate in it. If you are planning on living there yourself, then laminate is cheaper in the long run because you don't have to have it cleaned every six months. All in all, they will cost about the same depending on where you live and what is available and how cheap you want to go. You can get cheap carpet for around $8 a sq. yard and add $1 to install. That's about $9 a yard. Your laminate would have to run less than $1 a square foot (installed) to beat that price. You could probably do it, but it depends on how tacky you want to go an, again, how fast you want to sell.

I would ask at the store for discontinued carpet. They will usually sale this very cheap because they can not get anymore of that kind. Finding someone to do it as a "side job" has been mentioned. That shouldn't be too hard with the holidays right around the corner. Just ask around, or you may get lucky and run into an installer at the carpet store willing to do it.

When I was little I glued little carpet samples together to carpet my Barbie townhouse. Think that will look nice with the terrazzo? Kind of a patchwork effect....

Try buying carpet tiles (large carpet squares - padding is built in - trim to fit - easily removed and replaced if one tile becomes damaged or stained). No glue or adhesive required and you can take it up and go back to terrazo if you want to without much trouble. You can also create area rugs with carpet tiles and leave parts of the terazzo exposed, if you want to.

Georgia Carpet Outlet is the name of the place and they are on the web. They have great stuff and great prices. I carpeted 3200 sq feet for $4,300 including pad. They have carpet layers that carry accounts with them and I am sure they can help you.

You may have to buy padding but you can seach the yahoo recycle group site for carpet.

call 1800-588-2300 thats empire carpeting

Area rugs are the way to go. You can get them fairly cheap or you can make your own rugs.

http://www.rags-to-rugs.net/rug-making-hooked-rug....

http://yankeepeddler.com/