Could anyone recommend a good start to finish example of how to put in totally new carpet into a room? Looking for visual references, youtube is great, but even DVD's and such to order are fine if it's within a new person's ability to get it right without making mistakes. I'm not able to do it yet but have to plan for later if it's within my abilities. (ie - if carpet goes on sale from an overstock place that sometimes gets something, if it sounds feasible to do it myself i'll try to get some then) I don't know if you 100% need people to help or if one person can do it, or how to use carpet stretchers and similar.

Also about carpet spot repair... i'm told you can simply replace parts of a carpet by glueing things down normally in the middle and if you do it right there's no visible or tactile seam to feel when walking over it. I have a bunch of spots (damaged from my dads cat) that I need to fix, and what I was hoping is to replace the carpet entirely in the one "worst" room and then chop up the old carpet from that room (which matches everywhere else in the house) to fix the various stains and such that were made all over.

One curiosity though, wouldn't glueing down a spot of carpet create a problem for later replacing the whole rooms carpet, since isn't it just normally laid down, or tacked down, and not glued? :-/

 

Carpeting requires special tools, not only stretchers, but seamers, cutters, etc. If you have them already, good. If you don't it will be a major investment, or you will have to rent them. Gluing down carpet is not done. You must use glue tape with heat applied. Basically you are adhering the carpet to itself from the underside. Carpet must be free to move, so if you try to glue it down in one area and the remainder moves, you have the same problem you started with.
Since this is a DIY site, far be it for me to tell you not to do it yourself. However, if you have other parts of the project you are concentrating on, a professional carpet layer can come in and have an entire room laid and seamed in under an hour. DIY, look for an all day affair, with a bunch of frustration. There are some parts of life better left to pros, and this may qualify.

 

I wouldn't bother with this unless you intend to be a carpet installer some day. We have a knee kicker and will use that on occasion to tack back down carpet we have pulled up in a corner or along a wall but always pay a professional to install the carpet in our units.

 

It would cost almost as much to rent all the tools as it would cost to have somone install it. And you will probably encounter a problem that you can't fix.