Laying carpet in strips

TomsMom

I saw a makeover programme where two different colours of carpet were laid in strips about 2' wide.

As we can't get a roll of carpet up our dogleg staircase to our loft bedroom which would probably need 5m width carpet,, and there's no other practical way of getting one up there, it leaves us with a choice of either carpet tiles or possibly carpet strips.

If we chose strips, how would they be joined? Does something special need to be done to the edges of the strips?

It's a guest bedroom so not a lot of wear but I'm wondering if this would be a practical solution.

ormus

old style woven carpets were stitched together. the old timers can still do this.
modern carpets are taped & glued.

special reinforced tape.

GreenSheep

sounds labour intensive (which is latin for 'expensive'), over complicated, likely to wear quickly (definately on stairs) and likely to not be completed to the standard you expect.

do they not just do stripy carpet that would look the same?
a lot of carpet people will come round with books of designs a quote for free. you could ask them about the idea or a similar styled alternative. i'd persue that route, will only cost a cup of tea.

Cheers, GreenSheep

morg_monster

Greensheep, she can't get a normal roll of carpet up the stairs to the room.

GreenSheep

oh i missed that. sorry.

without looking i'm only guessing; but i've seen carpet fitters do some impressive origami up steps before. i'd still go for getting a chap round to give some suggestions.

TomsMom

GreenSheep wrote: »

oh i missed that. sorry.

without looking i'm only guessing; but i've seen carpet fitters do some impressive origami up steps before. i'd still go for getting a chap round to give some suggestions.

We had a really good carpet fitter do the rest of the house and he had to put a strip in one of the bedrooms, albeit where the wardrobe and chest of drawers go so no foot traffic on it and the join is only noticeable if it's pointed out. He's an aqaintence of DS and only comes here on holiday so will ask when he's next in the area, probably not until the summer but we've waited months already so a few more wont make much difference really. I'd rather use someone who I know is good than take a chance on someone local I don't know.

I was wondering about the wearability but it's only an "occasional" room so not as if it will be used every day.

Not sure if you thought I was on about stairs GreenSheep, the stairs cause the problem getting a carpet up, we just want the bedroom carpetted.

GreenSheep

i completely got the wrong end of the stick.

can you pass it in the window? a few friends, several triple extension ladders and a couple of mugs of tea? maybe a length of rope?

hope you get it sorted. cheers.

underlay_guru

Hi,

A competent carpet fitter will be able to join two smaller lengths of carpet together with heatseaming tape (as shown in the picture in post #2). Basically, the tape goes on the underside of the two pieces of carpet. The fitter will run a heatseaming iron over the top of the carpet, which melts the glue on the tape and creates a join.

TomsMom

GreenSheep wrote: »

can you pass it in the window? a few friends, several triple extension ladders and a couple of mugs of tea? maybe a length of rope?

hope you get it sorted. cheers.

We had to dismiss that idea. Even the builders wouldn't repair a leak to the window from the outside, they had to climb out of the window from the bedroom anchoring the safety harness inside somehow. Because it's two floors up above a sloping slate roof extension and only a couple of foot of garden in front of it, it's not possible to get the right angle for a ladder to reach the window. And the landing window is too small.

We've already had to have the h/s/l repainted after a delivery of bedroom furniture badly scuffed the newly painted walls, so forcing it up the stairs is out.

Maybe we should stick to carpet tiles, at least we wont have the worry of a join wearing. I can't bear the thought of having strips joined then a couple of years down the line it's worn so badly we'd need to replace it.

Thanks for you thoughts everyone.

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

I'm struggling to picture how mig the room is that you cant get a carpet in?

Have you had a fitter round who said that, or is it your own assesment? You may be surprised about how tight a bend you can get around with carpet without damaging it....

TomsMom

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain wrote: »

I'm struggling to picture how mig the room is that you cant get a carpet in?

Have you had a fitter round who said that, or is it your own assesment? You may be surprised about how tight a bend you can get around with carpet without damaging it....

The carpet fitter who did the rest of the house last year following renovation measured the loft bedroom and told us we would need 5m wide carpet and discussed the difficulty of getting it up there, and also dismissed the idea of it going through the landing window due to the size of the roll.

The tiny hall has five steps up the first flight, little landing with one step then it turns back on itself for the other eight steps to the small first floor landing, then turns back on itself again for the next landing then turns again for the stairs to the loft. You can see it here - stairs from picture 3 onwards.

If we had a carpet it would more than likely be hessian backed so not as flexible as other types of carpet and we've already been told that with the limited space we have it's virtually impossible to get a roll that size up without damaging the paintwork on the walls. As we've just had the decorator back to repaint we can't do it again and we're not in a position to decorate ourselves.

When we can talk with the fitter we can discuss strips, but I think we've more or less dismissed them now unless he can convince us the joins would be durable so it might very well be the carpet tiles.