Carpet!

The carpeteers (I just made that word up, but I like it) arrived at 12.20. I opened the door and headed upstairs...

"This way."
"Ohhh...don't tell me it's upstairs."
"Err, yeah. Think yourself lucky - I used to have a three-storey house!"
"It's just that it's a bloody big bit of carpet."
"Yes, well it's a bloody big room!"

By which time we were in it.

Gaffer looks around...

"Where's your underlay?"

They'd not put it on the van. I made it clear I had definitely ordered underlay, gripper rods, the whole works. After a short phone call the underlay was found, still in the warehouse. By the time this was sorted, the second fitter had finished laying the gripper rods, so they left.

The round trip to the depot is around 90 minutes. Owing to other jobs and complications they didn't return until 4.20, but they'd taken the opportunity to cut the corner of the carpet off in the warehouse to make fitting easier and to help them get the roll upstairs, which was a bit of a struggle and decapitated one of the newel posts.

The end result was worth the wait though. The carpet has been rolled up in their store for almost four months, so it will take a while for the lines to settle out, but it's every bit as plush as we'd hoped and already the room feels warmer and sounds less boomy. Once we have some curtains/blinds up it'll be the dog's.

Jobs remaining? Well, get the furniture back in obviously, which we'll be doing in dribs and drabs this week and at the weekend; sort out Nikki's fireplace with some new shelves, a little bit of plaster and paint, or maybe some tiles; rehang the door; paint the door (a project involving all the doors on the first floor); find some new light fittings and those curtains and that's pretty much it. Job done. At last.