Carpet Buying for Beginners

Carpet Buying for Beginners ©

By Michael Casey

We have decided we have, as in have to buy a new carpet. I carpeted the whole house six months after I moved in, but that was 28 years ago, when I was single and without any wife and kids. When I could both do as I pleased, and could then afford to. Kids and a wife do shrink your life and lifestyle, and your wallet, so now approaching 2016 a new carpet just has to be bought.

You can cheat by buying a rug from Argos, a ½ price rug, then throw it over the worn out Axminster where lazy feet and elephants have made a hole in you lovely carpet. I did do this, only I quickly realised the rug wasn’t big enough, it was like a badly fitting wig or rug that  Nick from down Bingo has as he holds the microphone close to call out the numbers, as if he were some famous BBC reporter. Anyway our floor is bigger than Nick’s head, so I improvised and put the small rug in the other room in front of the computer, where there were far smaller wear marks.

I then went online, with the small rug under my feet as I surfed Argos and bought a bigger rug. Perfect to cover all the wear and tear, and elephants in our living room. Then I reserved my purchase before going up the road to Argos. Luckily it wasn’t too heavy so I could carry it on my shoulder down the road to our house.

And have it installed as a fait accompli on our living room floor before the wife got home from church. If I was lucky she’d drive to Waitrose so I’d get a free Sunday newspaper and a luke-warm coffee, which I could spill on our new rug.

This was a year or so ago, so now another wear or almost tear mark has appeared in the traffic area next to our fridge and galley kitchen. So there is no alternative but to buy a new full wall to wall carpet, you cannot put elbow patches on carpets and say its trendy, though an old coat of Prince Charles’s may do.

I trawled through the Internet and finally decided on one, now I had to persuade the Shanghai wife, this involves going all around the houses until she decides that her decision is best. Then you point out that her choice is 50% dearer than yours, then she notices the price and colour of mine is almost the same as hers. So she accepts the decision I made 3 days previously, just changing the colour, otherwise we are in agreement.

Now the debate over who is to pay, I pay, you pay, no I pay, no you pay, no I pay, yes you pay, ok I pay. And so she will, with my money. We should have a Chinese chancellor, the Shanghai girl is always good with money, it must be true she always tells me so.

So now we await the man to measure up. The thing to remember is that underlay must be bought with decent carpet. And underlay may cost £6 a square metre  and higher, which some people may only pay on their carpet on the floor price. Never forget the carpet fitter and all his gripper too, the fitter is £90 or so.

I remember sitting in a new dentists once, the carpet has grooves and hills in it, more like a sand dune which had been blown by the wind. It was almost paper thin too with no underlay, and it was on top of concrete, neither the carpet nor the dentists lasted very long.

I have laid a carpet or too, and romping on carpet is nice too, provided there is enough support beneath. So if you want to spare your bum use a good underlay and fitter.