You’ve just had that beautiful brand new carpet installed in your home and wouldn’t you know it, there are excess remnants lying around. Sure they’re uneven and come in odd shapes and sizes, so your first inclination might be to trash that excess material.
Wait! Don’t do anything of the sort. Those carpet swatches represent a rather substantial dollar value and you shouldn’t just trash them after the installation is complete. There are a myriad of alternative uses for those old carpet scraps which can serve you a whole lot better than ultimately tossing them into the Dumpster.
So before you roll up those last remnants and get rid of them, here are some smart ways to re-purpose those excess pieces without wasting your hard-earned money.
1. Small Area Rugs
You have extra carpet, why not use it for its intended purpose in other various areas in and around your home. You may need to do a little measuring and trimming first, then bind the edges to prevent fraying and you’ll have a functional area rug for any number of uses.
Cut a scrap for use as a welcome by the front door, cut another one to put beneath a coffee table over your hardwood floor in the living room or den, you can even cut a pair of bathroom mats to lie down in front of the sink or shower or both!
Depending on the type of rug you’ve installed, you could even use your extra carpet swatch as stair runner over hardwood stairs. It’s a great way to prevent slip and fall accidents on stairways and you don’t need a lot of carpet length to do it properly. But it should look uniform along both edges of the length, so it’s an ideal way to use material that’s been trimmed evenly.
2. Carpet Repair Patches
That freshly installed carpet has barely lost its new carpet smell, so it may be more than just a bit premature to think about wear and tear and making repairs. But if you keep that carpet long enough, even with routine carpet cleaning alexandria and proper maintenance, it will begin to look a little worn out under heavy, repeated foot traffic.
If there are kids or pets in the home, you should also consider the various damage that could be caused by spills and accidents that leave behind stains that you may never manage to eliminate entirely.
In these instances, it may be necessary to repair your carpet by cutting the damaged area from the material and replacing it with a patch. For that, you’ll need the exact same carpet material in order to make it blend in and appear as if nothing ever happened.
So keeping some of those carpet scraps in your attic or garage might just come in handy if and when you need to extract a damaged portion now or in the future.
Doing the job is easy, you just measure and cut the affected portion of the carpet, do the same to your remnant, add a little adhesive into the hole you made in your installed carpet and plug it up with the patch you removed from your remnant. Brush the fibers to conceal the seams and your carpet will look as if nothing happened.
3. Pet Care
Extra carpeting material has plenty of uses when it comes to your pets. Cats can damage furniture with their sharp claws so to help avoid this from becoming your reality, create a makeshift scratching post by attaching one of your remnants to a wood pole or panel. Your kitty can sharpen her claws on that instead of your fancy couch.
Dogs can also enjoy discarded carpet remnants as a makeshift resting area or you can attach it to the inside of a doghouse to insulate it and make it a more comfortable place to relax.
4. Gardening Uses
That’s right, you can use your old carpet remnants in the garden or yard. It’s a great way to prevent weeds and other unwanted things from cropping up in your soil. You just lie down your remnant in the right spot, lay some soil or gravel over it. Nothing will be able to grow through the carpet and you can keep your yard looking gorgeous.
5. Safeguard the Floors
If you are working with heavy equipment or tools in your garage or some other room in the house, you can use your extra remnants to safeguard the area where you are working. It’s a cheap way to protect the area as it will cost less than damaging your floor should you drop something by mistake.
