For anyone trying to fit a new carpet there are pitfalls to beware of. However quality carpet is so simple to come by these days. Visit your local carpet retailer and pick the design of your choice and wait for the carpet to be delivered. Then, you can ask for the carpet to be trimmed and installed or you can choose to fit the carpet yourself. It’s easy for stairs and straight hallways but much tougher for those awkwardly shaped rooms. Nevertheless with the right tools and know-how, you’ll have a fantastic looking room at the end of your hard toil.

Preparatory work
Check that your flooring underneath where your carpet is going is clean and free of any debris and nails. The most satisfactory results for carpet has invariably been with clean and flat surfaces. Fix your carpet gripper around the edging of the whole room. Leave a gap at least one and half times the thickness of your picked out carpet. The gripper will come with an angled edge on one side which needs to go nearest to the wall.

Don’t forget the Underlay!..
Under laying is really useful for fitting carpets for a couple of reasons. The first is that it cushions the carpet and another is that it acts like sound proofing softening impact noises from individuals walking across it. To lay down underlay you have to ensure that it overlaps on top of your grippers you fitted. You have to lay it in strips and staple along the inside of the carpet grippers. When that is completed, trim all excess.

Now the carpet…
Commence with a piece of carpet that overlaps the edge of the floor by about five inches. You can always cut off this excess afterwards. To cut your first section, use the longest portion of your floor and then add the extra 5 inches to the measurement. Fold back the carpet piece over on itself and cut through the piece with a knife implement. If your room is sizeable enough for two pieces then repeat the process once more with a second piece. Where the two pieces touch, slightly overlap the two edges and cut off the excess again. Use some seaming tape to bind the two edges together. Use a seaming iron to make the adhesive stick the pieces to one another. The simple part of the job now involves using a carpet stretcher to tug the edge of the carpet across the grippers we fixed at the beginning. Push the carpet over using the stretcher and the tacks will then fasten firmly on to the underneath of the carpet. Cut off any excess and what you should be left with is a great looking carpet floor for you to admire for years to come.