Carpeteria

This job was for a 2000 sq ft office. We had quotes from 3 companies. Tony Balian was the most professional of the representatives that came to our office. After meeting with us, they all returned with carpet samples. One of the samples that Tony showed us won out. We chose Carpeteria because of the carpet sample and were delighted that the quote was reasonable. During the installation Tony came by every day to check on things. His crew worked very hard and did a very nice job. Tony is super pleasant and a joy to work with. We are so glad that we had this experience and we are so happy with our new carpet!

I used Carpeteria to install wooden flooring and stair carpeting in my townhome. Their customer service was great, and installation went very well. But, scheduling was a mess. I experienced repeated delays of delivery or installation (up to several weeks) without any communication back to me. I had to continually ask for updates to know what’s going on with my order.
If you’re in a hurry, I suggest you look elsewhere. Otherwise, keep texting them so you’ll know when your products will finally get installed.

Kudos to Vick Balian who demonstrated the best in customer service. I came in with a need for carpet remnants (phone call to the main store informed me that the San Antonio location could meet my needs). Vick couldn’t sell me what I needed but he got creative and sent me home not only happy and smiling but with all my needs met.

Vic helped us choose a carpet and arranged to have it made up into a runner. He gave us the best price and the runner is exactly what we wanted and was done on time. It was a pleasure to work with Vic.

We had an excellent experience, and we weren’t expecting that necessarily because we saw the «mixed» reviews here. But Vic was super helpful the day we wandered into the store (it was a Sunday). He came out to our place to measure the following Monday. He immediately saw that we had a particular kind of laminate floor that can’t hold nails, and told us how he could work around it. It took about a week for the carpet, which had to be ordered, to arrive, and we got a call and made an installation appointment. Since we have a lot of heavy furniture that was going to have to be moved out and back in, it was explained to me that I’d need to make a separate deal with the installers for that part of the job. That didn’t bother me at all. The installers were on time, and they were wonderfully attentive, polite, and thorough. They spent time going over various options with me for dealing with thresholds, heater vents in the floor, and other details. We came to an agreement on a price for moving furniture out and back in. They were very careful moving our things. I actually had to leave them to finish the job (I had to go to work), and I felt comfortable doing that. While I was gone, they moved all the heavy stuff back into place perfectly. Since we’d had to disconnect our television and internet modem from the cable in order for them to move our furniture out of the living room, I came home expecting to have to figure out how to reconnect everything, and I’m not all that good with electronics. My daughter had an assignment due that night for school and was going to need to get online to access our wireless printer, and I was nervous about making that happen. I was so surprised to find that everything had been correctly reconnected, the modem and cable were working, and the printer was online. That seemed over and above the call of duty, and was so appreciated! And everything was clean as a whislte. The carpet looks fantastic. All around a good experienvce.

We were delighted with the service provided by Mr. Balian and his team. Tony explained why our stair carpet had become soiled over the years by dirt coming up from the crawl space. He sealed the edges before his team installed lovely moderately priced carpets that Tony had recommended. We had two rooms as well as the stairs and hall recarpeted. The team was polite, quiet, clean, and efficient. The only minor problem was that they forgot to rehang one of the room doors.

Tony Balian was awesome — extremely responsive to emails and cell phone calls on the weekends too. He came out to our house the week before (on a Sunday on his own time!) to remove the old carpeting because I wanted to have cleaners come clean all the flooring underneath before installing the new carpeting. Then after the carpet was installed, I asked about getting a plastic floor covering to protect it (since we still had some remodeling work being done), and he said he picked it up for me at Home Depot and I could pick it up from the store from him the next morning!!! Wow! That is customer service! There was one issue — I thought about knocking off 1 star for because he mis-​measured by 2 stair steps how much carpeting we needed, so the guys had to come back to install the last 2 steps; however, they rush ordered it and it put it in 3 days later!
Also I should note that I wanted Greenguard certified carpet padding (given all the issues with chemicals off-​gassing from carpet padding), and he had this product. I was not able to get this product from another highly Unilocal rated carpet store, which is why I switched to Tony at Carpeteria (I initially hesitated due to the low reviews)

After seeing the negative reviews here, I was reluctant to use these guys. I had a flight of stairs that need to be carpeted with runners that don’t look like oriental rugs. I was out of luck with the carpet guy I usually use as they don’t do stair runners that way I need, but they referred me to Carpeteria as the only people who specializes in staircases in the area. I’m glad I gave them a try. Tony at the store handled my sales and it was quick and easy and the price was reasonable. Tony also made a trip to come to confirm my measurement of the stair widths at no charge. I wasn’t at home and he waited for over 30 min outside. Great customer service! The only reason it isn’t a 5 star is because the installation scheduling is handled by the main company’s admin folks, and it took a few explanations to be able to schedule a window that works for me. The installers were fast and cleaned after themselves. I will definitely use them again!

Carpeteria was recommended by a friend for having good quality carpeting and good financing terms, so I went in ready to select and buy.
Unfortunately when I went to the showroom, the salesman Vicken Balian (Vic) was in the back, sitting at a desk and seemed very disinterested in helping me select a carpet. I practically had to coax him to show me which carpet selections would meet my needs.
I finally narrowed down my search to two options and asked for a price quote. He said he would have to call me on Monday with a quote (it was Saturday), but he never did. I called him later in the week and eventually got a price.
Because something «didn’t feel right», I found another carpet dealer who sold the same item and ended up saving 30% AND got excellent service.
I recommend this store if you want to get treated rudely and over pay for the product, otherwise go elsewhere.

it’s too bad that the person that wrote the review about Vic didn’t think about the fact that all special orders you pay first. We have worked with Vic for 2 purchases, most recently carpet for our entire house. He was very patient with us and gave us many options in our price range. He asked a number of questions that helped us select our carpet choices and we couldn’t be happier with them. We enjoyed working with Vic and hope that one person’s bad experience doesn’t deter others from using Carpeteria. Vic has been in the business many years and knows his products and provided excellent service. The installation of our carpet was also done very professionally and it looks great.

Needed to replace 20 year-​old carpet in 3 rooms (great room + 2 bedrooms). Read Consumer Reports, looked at friends’ new/​remodeled homes, comparison shopped everything from the big box stores to high-​end designer show rooms in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Found the brand and styles we wanted at the most expensive place (of course). While looking for alternative sources, we happened up Carpeteria, in Palo Alto. This modest store, located across the street from Sears, is a hidden gem.
Lo-​and-​behold, they had an amazing selection, including the high-​end Fabrica carpets we wanted, at prices significantly better than anywhere else we had found. Problem solved, right? Well, not immediately. They also had a selection of similar competing products, with other styles worthy of consideration.
Faced with this multitude of choices, the store’s designer, Vic, offered to come out to our home, and offer some suggestions. We selected almost a dozen variants, and took them home. Vic came over a few hours later, after the store closed. He measured the rooms, looked at the lightening and existing furnishings, asked about our dog’s habits, and how we used the space. Then he made some observations about the pros/​cons of the different pieces we were considering, and when we narrowed it down to a couple, he suggested that we return to the store the next day, to consider some less expensive alternatives that were very similar!
We are very happy with the carpets we finally selected, and the service and installation process. The carpet was delivered on time, and the installers were very professional, moving all our furniture without any problems.
Bottom-​line: we have referred several friends to Vic at Carpeteria, and would buy there again. Check it out.

What a terrible business. I called on a Saturday to ask for a price quote, and was told they had to call someone on monday to get that quote, and then they would call me. On Thursday morning, I still hadn’t heard from anyone, so I went out of my way to stop by the store.
I entered the store and saw one employee, Vic, sitting at a desk towards the rear. He was not working on anything, and there were no other customers. Still, he did not greet me. I walked up to the desk, got his attention, and explained about the Saturday call. No apology. He then proceeds to make a phone call (not telling me who he is calling), and eventually starts talking to somebody about the product I needed. After speaking for a few moments he hangs up, and starts writing up the order.
After marking up the price to sell it at a profit, he also wanted to charge me a shipping charge for having the product sent from the manufacturer to his store (not to my home). And then he wanted me to pay in advance.
When I calmly began to explain that I didn’t feel comfortable paying in advance for a product without knowing he was ordering the correct thing (he only wrote down a product code), and after not having received the return phone call I was promised, he cut me off and said in a raised voice and hostile tone, «Tough. If you don’t like it go somewhere else.»
So I told him I would do that, and that he should treat his customers with respect, and that I would spread the word about how I was treated.
Save yourself the hassle and headache, and skip this place. Maybe it will go out of business and Vic can start an equally successful career as a life coach.

Too bad the lowest you can go is one star. I would give negative 5 if I could.
I would recommend that you stay as far away from this place as you can. The carpet they sell is fine, but they hire incompetent, unskilled installers and you will end up very unhappy with the work.
The sales/​estimate guy was great. Knew a lot about carpet and installation, was able to answer all of our questions, and made us think we were getting a good deal.
One problem is that he promised us emphatically that we wouldn’t have to move anything at all ourselves out of OR back into the rooms that were being carpeted, that one of the things that makes his company special is that the installers do ALL of the moving, both before and after the installation. We were a bit skeptical about that, but we trusted him, unfortunately. More on that below…
After the guys «finished», they came and asked for a check. I figured I better take a look at what they did. In one of the rooms they didn’t install the trim border strip where the carpet met the linoleum. I pointed that out and they said that if I paid them now, they would come back and install it later because they didn’t have any more trim. Uh… no thanks, I told them they could come back with the trim and when they finish I’ll give them the check. They tried quite a few angles to try to leave without installing the trim, but after I had to call the company and ask for their boss, they agreed to go get another trim strip and finish the job.
Now they said they were «finished» again. I checked and they hadn’t put any of the closet doors back on. I should have just let it go, but I asked them to put the closet doors back. Now almost all of the closet doors are broken and won’t stay in the tracks anymore. Darn.
Another thing that they didn’t do was cut the carpet where it covered the trap door into our crawl space. The trap door isn’t hidden or hard to see in any way, they just tried to get out of doing it. I pointed that out, and one of the guys just whipped out his cutter and slit the carpet around the edges of the trap door. No nice trimmed edges like the previous carpet had. It looks really stupid. At least it’s in a closet.
After they «finished» again, they asked for the check again. But they hadn’t moved ANY of the stuff back into the rooms. When I asked them to move the stuff back, they insisted that it’s only their job to move the «heavy» things back, and that we would have to move all the other stuff back ourselves. Well, as I said, we were skeptical, but since the sales guy INSISTED that the installers would move everything back, we offered to call the store again and get clarification on what they should do. That worried them and they started moving the heavy stuff. They moved the heavy stuff only and again asked for a check. I asked them to at least move all the boxes back in (we boxed up all the stuff in the rooms before they came so they weren’t just moving armloads of loose things). They got pretty sullen and just started throwing boxes into whichever room they were closest to. Whatever, this was a dumb game, so we paid them and told them to take off.
After they left, we found all the other damage they did:
— Greasy black handprints left all over the white walls and doors.
— Broken closet doors.
— Broke smoke detector off the ceiling.
— Broke a curtain rod off the wall.
— Pried all of the door stoppers off the walls instead of unscrewing them.
— Lots of dents and dings in the walls.
— After using the toilet and making a very nasty mess in it, they didn’t bother to flush.
I sure won’t ever use Carpeteria for any flooring job again.