Jan 13

Jan 13 My New Stair Carpet with Designer Carpet

I’ve always wanted a carpet runner but with young children and messy, muddy shoes, I’ve put off considering one for the last 7 or so years, choosing instead a practical beige carpet (and I don’t do beige!). But I have long since lusted after homes with beautiful striped runners and I knew eventually I would add one to the house.

The second challenge with adding a runner was the quality of the stairs underneath the original carpet. I knew they were needing a lot of work, typical of Victorian homes, as I had seen them and shied away from doing the work last time I considered a stair carpet.

I hadn’t had time to think about or plan any of this but we went into lockdown and I started to think about home improvements much like everybody else in the country.

I was approached by Designer Carpet who supply premium carpet remnants allowing you to get a luxury carpet at a discount price (up to 90% off), to see if they could supply me with a carpet and to try out this way of ordering and fitting a carpet. They supply remnants and roll end, all of which are perfect quality. As they are the UK’s leading provider, I jumped at the chance to finally get my stair carpet of dreams.

Designer Carpets also supply made to measure rugs. Rugs are made in house and you can mix and match carpets and borders to create something totally bespoke for you. Equally, you can buy ready made rugs.

Brands include Kersaint Cobb, Alternative Flooring, Brintons, Crucial Trading, Designer carpet and more.

I chose a Kersaint Cobb striped carpet. I went with a charcoal colour rather than black as I wanted a slightly softer look and I chose to have the carpet whipped in the same colour..

I live in a three story house so we had 2 runners, 2 large landings and 3 small landings to carpet. We also had to have all of the stairs stripped and sanded back. They were painted in a dirty, chipped, white colour. Having sanded a number of my real wood floors before, I knew this was not something I would have the patience to do so I hired Ilkley Floorcare to come and do it for me. The work took around 3 days but the stairs came up a beautiful colour much like the panelling on the stairs.

I set about decorating the hallway from top to bottom ahead of the carpet being fitted, not an easy task given the ceiling height of 11 ft and 14ft in some places.

When ordering a carpet online, you need to supply you own measurements and find a carpet fitter to fit the carpet once it arrives. I had never ordered a carpet this way before and taking on the stairs was a significant challenge, especially given the stripe match. I’m not entirely sure we got out measurements right as we had a few challenges with the fitting of the carpet after it arrived. Thankfully, we had hired Phil from H2H flooring, a master carpet fitter, so he was able to work through the different options with us. With hindsight, I’d ask the carpet fitter to measure first before we ordered the carpet.

I think for a square room it is fine to go ahead on your own, especially given the discount you can get ordering this way, but we have 5 turns on our stairs and I think that is better measured by a fitter.

In the end, it all worked out and I now have my perfect hallway carpet and I couldn’t be happier with the finished result.