carpet / rugs?

j.e.j.

We've managed to get most of the rooms in our flat carpeted, except for the hallway, and we can't afford to pay for a carpet + fitter at the moment, so I wanted to pick your O-S brains for ideas for ways to make it look a bit less bare and uninviting!

At the moment it's bare chipboard and I've put a small offcut of carpet that we had left over along one bit of the hallway. I am always a bit embarrassed when someone comes to the door, as the first thing you notice is the bare boards and then the (now shabby-looking) narrow strip of carpet which hardly covers one end.

I was wondering if there might be a good and not too expensive way to pretty it up a bit.. would there be any varnishes or paints, perhaps, that I could use, bearing in mind it's going to get walked on a lot. Or is there anywhere that might do cheap-ish rugs.

The hallway's L-shaped and it's about 3.5 metres each direction, iyswim. Any ideas?

JodyBPM

Have you looked at cheap "stick down" carpet that you literally stick down with carpet tape or that carpet glue spray? It would probably be pretty cheap to do it yourself, and would look ok for a year or two til you save up to get a better carpet fitted. Can buy it from the big carpet shops or ebay. You could also look for remnants since its quite a small area.

Alternatively, perhaps a tin of white floor paint, plus a runner or rug. Reckon that would cost as much as the cheapy carpet though...

scottishminnie

Is there a carpet shop or even a market trader selling carpets nearby? My friend was renovating an old property and needed a carpet but had zero cash. She managed to get about 40 carpet samples (the kind in a sort of "book" if you know what I mean) which she arranged into a massive rug which covered most of her living room floor and looked great. She got them free as they were old samples and they did the job till she could afford a fitted carpet.

I can't remember the specific details but I think she used some sort of tape to attach them together on the back.
One of our other (label obsessed) friends thought it was designer rug and kept asking where she had got it!

You could make a nice funky runner for very little:)

zippychick

as this has dropped down the OS board, i've moved this to in my Home to see if you get some different ideas over here

Good luck with it

Zip

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com"]forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

faerie~spangles

I once painted my bathroom floor with ordinary emulsion and did a Greek key stencil around the perimeter.

If you are in anyway arty you could paint the floor then paint a rug on it

E.T.A : Ask on freegle for paint or rugs

faerie~spangles

Just remembered that I sealed the painted floor with yacht varnish.