Preparing your room for a new carpet

If you are planning to purchase a new carpet for a room in your home, here are a few simple tips to help you ensure everything goes smoothly on the day of installation.

Use a professional

While it might be tempting to try to save money by fitting a carpet yourself, larger rooms or awkward spaces are best left to a professional. The last thing you want is to splash out on a luxury carpet and end up with a disappointing finish because you tried to cut corners. Professional carpet fitters have years of experience and will have the specialist knowledge required to deal with tricky situations or awkward areas.

Clear your furniture

Move all furniture out of the room before your carpet fitter arrives. You may find some larger items, such as wardrobes, need to be dismantled before you can remove them. If this is not possible, the item may have to remain in the room being carpeted. If you have extremely large or heavy pieces of furniture that cannot be moved out of the room, make sure you discuss this with your carpet fitter ahead of time. All carpet fitters work differently and some may be willing to move a certain number of pieces of furniture themselves or work with a certain number of items still in the room. Don’t take this for granted, however, as your carpet fitters are there to do a specific job and won’t take too kindly to turning up only to find that they are expected to lug heavy furniture around your home before they can start their specialist work.

Find out what will happen if doors need rehanging

If you are going from a very thin carpet to a much thicker one, or from no carpet to any carpet at all, you might find that your doors no longer fit. Many carpet fitters will remove doors when fitting carpets, but not all will rehang them. If your door will need trimming so that it can close, check whether this is a service offered by your carpet fitter. If your fitter does not offer a trimming and rehanging service as part of the fitting, you will either need to tackle this job yourself or call a tradesperson to finish the job once your carpet has been fitted. Being prepared for this allows you to budget in the extra cost and ensures you won’t be left without doors for too long after your carpet has been fitted.