Carpets & Glue Fumes

The carpeting was an interesting challenge, both in terms of cutting it out and sticking it in. The cutting out proved to be quite difficult as the carpet is quite thick and extremely strong in terms of its construction. I had purchased a cutter specifically for carpets but it simply would not push through the carpeting. I imagine it would work well with cheap thin carpet but it didn't even dent the seagrass. Eventually, John and I resorted to a stanley knife with and the back of an old sketch pad as a cutting mat. This at least managed to cut through the carpet, with multiple blade changes.

Sticking the carpet in was another matter entirely. We used contact adhesive to do this and my goodness, the fumes were absolutely awful. We both wore masks but it was still rather pungent. I honestly do not know how anyone could choose to be a glue sniffer. Clearly, I am not cut out for it. Anyway, the biggest issue was in making certain that when we put the carpet in place, that it was perfect as there was no removing it once it had made contact. This proved to be a rather interesting challenge, especially with the larger panels and working in a restricted amount of space. Firstly, we had to make certain the carpet did not stick to itself and we had to make certain it was stuck exactly where we wanted it to be stuck..... as a result, I am absolutely dreading sticking in the headlining, as we will be using the same glue!! There will be no room for error.

Looking at the seagrass carpeting, I am really pleased we chose it. It will add extra insulation, it is hard wearing and it looks really good!

Cutting out the Vinyl Headlining

Although, I don't enjoy being ill, I was rather grateful to use it as an excuse for not helping John to rip out the old headlining with its disintegrating foam and the carpeting. Being ill has it's advantages! Poor old Genesis looks quite bare without her headlining.... even if it was saggy.

Being ill has not gotten me out me out of having to trace all the headlining shapes and then having to add on a seam allowance. A tedious job at best. It doesn't help that there are no straight lines to make it quicker! Make certain you have enough pattern paper BEFORE you start!

Once all the patterns were completed, they were cut out on the floor of our lounge in one session. The best route was to lay out all the pattern pieces for the headlining out in one go, as I wanted to have as little wastage as possible. I wasn't able to use needles for the pattern pieces, as they leave holes in the headlining, so I used sticky tape, to stick the paper pattern pieces to the vinyl headlining. Not ideal at all. By the time I had finished cutting out the pattern pieces, my knees were positively covered in bruises.

Headlining Patterns being arranged and cut out

Pattern piece stuck down with sellotape

The trickiest sections to cut out were the smaller bits. I ended up using a sharp stanley knife in combination with the sellotape as using a pair of scissors caused the pattern pieces to move too much.