Have you bought a new carpet? Well, that’s great, it will make your house cozier and more stylish. But a question arose right after the purchase: how to fit a carpet on my own? Carpet fitting is not that simple, but, you know, nothing is impossible, especially when we are here to guide you through your carpet fitting process. Don’t panic, let’s get started.

1. Measure your room

The first and most important step is to measure your room. By the way, you should do this step before buying a carpet. First off, measure the length and width of your room at the widest points. Afterwards, multiply the two numbers and get the overall square meters of your room. Remember to add 10% as wastage. You can even use online carpet measurement calculators.

2. Gather carpeting fitting tools

To perfectly fit your carpet you will need a set of tools. Some you might already own, but others you have to buy if you want to carpet the floor yourself. You can buy tools from dedicated shops or online stores such as Amazon or eBay. Take a look at the toolbox that you need and check the tools that you have:

• Knee pads
• A pair of gloves
• Lining paper
• A suitable underlay
• Carpet gripper strips
• Craft knife
• Staple gun or hammer
• Tape measure
• Carpet stretcher
• Pipe and cable detector
• A vacuum cleaner

3. Free up the room

To have better insight into the room measurements you must remove everything from the room. After removing all the stuff, you should clean up the room with a mask if the previous carpet was too old and dusty.

4. Remove the previous carpet

It’s very likely that before fitting your new carpet, you must remove the previous one and prepare the floor for the new carpet. If you didn’t have a carpet before the new one, you can skip this step.

Let’s start with removing your carpet, at this step you will need your gloves to pull up the carpet with pliers. You can even use the craft knife and divide the carpet into manageable sections to roll it up more easily. This does seem easy but, believe us, it’s not. In the same way you should remove the previous underlay and smoothen the floor if needed.

5. Fit carpet grippers

Use your pipe and cable detector to discover hidden wires and pipes. In case you find any wire or pipe mark space and use gripper adhesive instead. You should put grippers everywhere the carpet will cover. The grippers come with pre-installed nails to ensure a firm grip. Remember that the sharp points on the gripper should point at the walls to keep the carpet in place.

6. Lay the carpet underlay

Carpet underlay is an essential part of carpet fitting. You should buy a good underlay to ensure the long life of your carpet. It gives the feeling of comfort and keeps the house warmer.

While laying the underlay, put the rubber side facing down. The underlay must be at the same level as grippers, so feel free to use a craft knife to cut them into sections to have the best result. Join the edges with double-sided tape so that the underlay is flat.

7. Fit the carpet

Finally, you reach the final step to fit your carpet. The first step is to roll up the carpet starting from the longest wall of your room going backwards. Start smoothing the carpet, leaving additional 50-70mm from each side. You can even cut the carpet to size perfectly. After you should use your carpet tucker to make a crease where the carpet meets the skirting board. With one hand hold the carpet, with the other one use craft knife to cut the edge so that it pushes the crease the place where the carpet meets the floor. After that place the carpet stretcher so that it is 25mm from the skirting, teeth facing down.

Next,  use your knee pads, as you are going to push the padded end so that the carpet is fastened to the grips from both corners. As you can see there’s an excessive part of the carpet. Use carpet tucker to push that part down between skirting and grippers. Repeat this action until the wall is complete and do the same for the other walls. When you finish, use the tucker one more time to make sure that the carpet is firmly tight to all the corners and skirtings. For tricky parts, you should cut the edges of the carpet vertically.

Your carpet is ready, simply use the carpet stretcher one more time to even the carpet. The final step is to vacuum your new carpet and do it regularly as with new carpets the fibers rise to the surface more often.

Now you can proudly call yourself carpet fitting pro.

Stay tuned to our pro articles, read about articles: How Can You Clean Your Area Rug at Home and What You Should Know When Buying an Oriental Rug.