Installing new carpeting turns into confusing beige-colored adventure

We’ve always been envious of friends who have done it in every room of their house. So, we finally decided it was now or never: we were going to recarpet our entire home.

We had successfully avoided this huge hassle in the past by moving just as the carpet had worn out our welcome. Early in our relationship, we once moved when the fridge needed to be defrosted. We just couldn’t be bothered.

We knew our carpet was dirty and disgusting when we started wiping our feet before going outside. Also, when friends came over for a cocktail, we told everyone it was a shag carpet. It really wasn’t. It just looked that way because we’ve had dogs and cats for 32 years.

Sometimes I walked out of my bathroom while brushing my teeth in order to watch TV in my home office. There were a few toothpaste globs on the floor. I scraped them up now and then. They looked a lot like dinner mints.

In preparation for this big move (of course, we were not moving, but we might as well have been), I bought a book called “The Complete Carpet Buying Guide,” by Alan Fletcher. The book is wall-to-wall with great ideas.

Mary Ellen kept telling me to put the book down and go to bed. “Just a few more pages,” I pleaded. I still hadn’t gotten to chapter six: Making it all work in the bedroom.

Once we made the decision to go ahead with the project, I stood at the bottom of the stairs and scanned the house. The immensity of the task overwhelmed me. I wondered if we really had to do the first and second floors at the same time.

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