The Park County Courthouse will get some new carpeting this fall — though not as much as county officials had hoped.

On Tuesday, county commissioners accepted a $42,594.25 bid from Decorating Ideas of Powell to replace carpeting in the hallways and publicly accessible areas of the offices in the main floor courthouse addition. That includes the hallways, open areas and counters in and around the clerk’s, treasurer and assessor’s offices.

“There’d been so much traffic there, we’d actually worn the carpet down,” said Park County Buildings and Grounds Superintendent Mike Garza.

Commissioners had planned on recarpeting the employee areas of those offices, too, but shelved those plans to stay within an $85,000 budget; including the office space would have brought the total cost to $114,755.40.

Those offices will have to be taken care of later, when commissioners make additional funding available. To ensure the carpet will match, the county is buying enough tiles for the entire project — at an additional cost of about $37,100 — and will simply stick those materials in storage until they’re ready to be used.

The county will spend a total of $79,688 with Decorating Ideas at this time, which was “as far as our money could go,” said Commissioner Lloyd Thiel.

While no one is sure of the current carpeting’s exact age, the consensus is that it’s been around for more than decade. During that time, it’s been trod upon by thousands of people renewing license plates, paying property taxes, getting marriage licenses and conducting other county business.

Because of the wear and tear on the main floor, some spots ”always look dingy, always look dirty,” no matter how many times they’re cleaned, Garza said. He added that the carpet “has given us our fair share of time to look as good as it does.”

“At some point, it just wears out,” he said.

County officials had spent roughly $700 advertising the carpet replacement project — including in Casper and Billings — with the hope of attracting bidders from across the state. However, Decorating Ideas was the only company to step up and put forward a bid.

Commission Chairman Lee Livingston said “it’d be nice if we’d have had some options,” musing that contractors “must not be hungry.”

“I think everybody’s so hungry they’ve bitten off more than they can chew,” Garza responded.

Clerk Colleen Renner attested to the busyness, saying that when crews recently replaced carpet in her Cody home, they mentioned being booked into June.

Meanwhile, construction-related costs have been rising, with building costs doubling in the past year, Thiel said.

Decorating Ideas plans to start installing the new carpet sometime after Sept. 1. 

“We’ve got a little bit of time before it [the project] causes a major disruption to what we do,” Garza said.

The new tiles are intended to closely match the color of the existing flooring.