Repairing Hole In Carpet

REPAIRING A HOLE IN A CARPET

After recently having a new carpet laid in my bedroom I was horrified to find Minnie and Maisie had eaten a hole in it the very next day. It hadn’t even been on the floor for 24 hrs and there was a hole the size of the bottom of a mug.

To say my husband was fuming is an understatement but always ready to defend their actions I told him it must have been because it was a Berber pure new wool carpet and that it wasn’t their fault because it must have had a smell on it that us ‘humans’ can’t detect! He wasn’t fooled.

I could have cried myself because it was in such a prominent place, it was in the walkway at the bottom of the bed, a place where it would be trod on numerous times a day.
I promised that I would sort it but was really not sure that I could do it.

I browsed the Internet and found many variations of doing it yourself carpet mending but I wasn’t really convinced that it would be an invisible repair! So I had a practice with a bit of spare carpet before I attempted the real thing.
After a bit of trial and error (mainly error) I finally cracked it MY WAY! And just in case you have a Minnie or a Maisie clone in your house I am going to share with you how to do it.

Firstly I would advise you to try it with a bit of spare carpet so you know what your doing before you attempt the hole.
Depending of course what room your ‘hole’ is depends on where you take your carpet to repair it from if you don’t have any spare cut offs. If it’s in the bedroom you could always cut a patch out from inside the wardrobe or under the bed (no ones going to look under the bed except you). Also if it’s a pattern carpet your going to have to match it, mine was just a plain colour and was new so there was no fading or anything.

Carpet pile run in lines and they had eaten a circle so I bravely cut it into a square with a sharp blade so that the hole was perfectly cut along the lines. When my hubby came to see what I was doing I think he thought I’d lost the plot as the small round hole was now a big square.

After you’ve made sure the hole is now very neatly cut and all little bits of fluff have been removed it’s time to start the patch.

Count how many thread lines you have cut in your carpet, mine was 12 x14. Then I cut my patch to be about 20 x 20 thread lines. I then pulled all the carpet threads from the outside in and gently pulled the wool being careful not to disturb another line. Do this evenly around your patch and leave the amount you need to as in my case was 12×14. So now you are left with a square tuft of carpet that has bald carpet around it.

Next you need to have some very strong glue and put it all around the bald bit making sure you do not touch the carpet fibres of the tuft. Put this aside while you get on your hands and knees and start on the hole.

I didn’t know what to use under the carpet because we had a really thick underlay and whatever I used had to be durable and flexible. I didn’t want the patch sticking to the underlay and I was worried that the moment I vacuumed the carpet my patch would disappear up the pipe! And I was concerned about getting any glue on the carpet (I’m not the tidiest worker)

I had a spare glue band that I’d purchased for my apple tree in the shed and it was incredibly sticky, so much so that you needed alcohol to clean your hands if even the slightest bit touches your skin so I decided to use that. It comes folded in half making it easier to handle so I cut a large piece making sure that it went at least 4″ each side of the hole.
Then I put in a couple of small rolls of tape to raise the carpet up around the hole along one edge.
I poked the sticky goo paper through the hole while it was still folded and when it was positioned in the right place I placed a moist baby wipe on each edge of the square so that when the glue paper was unfolded it wouldn’t leave any residue on the carpet.

Then the tricky bit, I opened up the paper as best as I could and made sure it was in the right position. I then got my patch and poked it into the hole folding it up slightly so that it went I and dropped it into the centre of the gooey paper.
This is where you remove the item (mines was rolls of tape) that’s holding up your carpet slightly. And I gently lowered the carpet onto the patch.
I then got a thin nail and made sure all of the outer edge of carpets tufts from the patch were out and nestling against the original carpet.
Then I stood on it firmly rocking back and forth and checked it frequently to make sure it was still perfectly matched and then with the nail I carefully run it up and down the lines of the carpet and the patch together.
Then lastly I closed the door on the bedroom and left the glue to do its bonding.

I’m not lying or exaggerating but when I when back to see if it looked ok and that the glue had dried I literally could not find the repair…..it really was that good. Even my husband didn’t know where it was and I had to stop him getting out the vacuum cleaner to see if he could suck it up! I left it 3 days before I did that and it has never budged. I know roughly where it is and if I get on my hands and knees I can find it but no one else has ?
When my family come to visit they had all heard about the carpet munchers and one by one they go and have a look to see if they can find the patch. But they can’t, so I’m really pleased it actually worked. Good luck with yours.

PHOTOS TO FOLLOW SOON

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