You and your client have carefully, painstakingly, patiently chosen colors and materials for a floor-to-ceiling renovation.
Today the carpet installers have arrived, the last of the endless stream of workers on this job. You could be sipping wine in your newly designed masterpiece of a room this very night!
But no!
You, a thoughtful, careful, well-meaning designer, now find yourself in a trap.
You have fallen victim to one of the three carpet installation snafus that occur all too frequently.
Bob Ford, Jr., whose family has been installing carpet since 1956, runs Addison/Dicus carpet installation service. "It always surprises me how often interior designers, whom we work for exclusively, encounter these same three problems."
Marble or Tile Surface Too High
The marble (or tile) installers have built up the surface of the marble so that it exceeds the surface of the carpeted area by as much as two inches. Installing the carpet as planned will leave an ugly and hazardous step between the carpeted floor and the marble.
What to do: The best solution in the case of the marble/carpet juncture and the too-high baseboard is to stop everything, call in a crew of carpenters and lay down a layer of plywood. Then reschedule the carpet installers. Alternately, have your installer build a ramp or a threshhold. A ramp or threshold may not blend well with your original design.
Baseboard Installed Too High
The builder has installed the baseboard 1.5 inches off the floor and the carpet is only 3/8 inch high. What about that ugly gap?
What to do: Call the carpenters and have them nail down plywood to build up the floor to the right height to close the gap. A somewhat less desirable fix is to install shoe molding.
The Wrong Squishy Carpet Padding
The plans call for a squishy carpet pad underneath a woven carpet and the carpet cannot be smoothed.
What to do: DON'T!
"This just won't work," said veteran installer Ford. "Sometimes we can't have our cake and eat it too. Our solution is to politely decline to install squishy padding under woven carpet."
So the answer is simple. Don't suggest it to your client. Don't acceed to you client's wishes if s/he asks for it.
Preventative Measures
As designer, you might say to yourself, "This is not my fault."
It may not be, but you are in the middle, like it or not. Your client is going to look to you for answers.
"These are builder issues and the builder should know better," said Ford, "but don't count on it unless you know the builder and have worked with him before. Otherwise staying in contact with the builder and his foremen and doing a bit of 'reminding" is good practice."
Look at the Plans and Anticipate
Of course, the uneven floor and the high baseboards might be an unavoidable problem. But the time to deal with it is in the planning stage and not on the day that your carpet installation team arrives.