It Is Not As Easy As It Seems……

My father was a conductor on the railroad, but he was also a carpenter.  Not professionally, he only worked on his own projects.  He was very talented!  When they had money saved up, they would start a new project and slowly were getting the house the way they wanted it to be.  My mother and father were remodeling their living room and dining room area.  They purchased the newest thing to come out, carpet squares.  They were totally excited about this. The boxes were stacked, waiting for them to begin this remodel.

One day, while our parents were grocery shopping and running errands, my little brother suggested we lay this carpet for them since they had not done so yet.  I questioned him but he said it would be so easy.  He laid it on thick and was very convincing.  He was going on about how very busy they were and what a great help it would be if we were to do this for them.  I am not sure of our ages at the time, but he is 3 years younger  and I was not yet 16.  This should be proof enough that we had no clue as to how to do this and should in no way attempt it! We also may have been old enough to know better, but obviously not.  Are you cringing with the thoughts you must be having now?  Haha.

My little brother assured me we could do this and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.  He had an opened box and he showed me how you just peel off this backing and stick it to the floor.  Well, that was pretty neat and looked to be easy enough.  I shrugged and we decided we could do it.  It WAS really, really easy.  We were so fast at it, too!  Why had they not done this yet?

Mom and Dad returned home and we were so proud that we had finished this for them. We were all smiles, it looked so pretty and it took hardly any time at all to complete! Mom and dad pointed a fact out to us that we had not noticed.  I am sure they noticed right off because after we were told, we realized that looking at the carpet sort of made your eyes go crazy.  Evidently, the carpet tile had a vertical pattern of lines throughout it in different shades of color.  We, of course, not realizing this had laid these squares without paying attention to that one, small, little detail.  Consequently, the pattern was going all different directions.

They were sad and frustrated, but I do not remember much anger coming from them toward us.  I cannot believe they were not furious! (Maybe they were and I just have am not remembering that.)  I think perhaps since we were so proud, it was hard for them to show all of the anger they must have been experiencing?  I wonder about all of the money we just wasted for them. (Perhaps they ran into the bedroom and buried their screams in a pillow, haha!) We felt so terrible for trying to help when we really did not know what we were doing.  Thinking about it now, I am wondering if there needed to be some sort of underlayment put down first?  It was that old tile everyone use to use that is known as commercial tile.  There was alternating colors of brown and black. I found this picture on the internet, but ours was this tile and then a black tile and was in a checkerboard pattern.

Do you remember that tile?  I think it may still be in use today but not in homes. My brother and I just put the carpet  over the old tile that was there and I am not sure that was the correct thing to do in thinking back about it now.

Our intentions were good and I think our parents did appreciate our attempt, but, gosh I wonder what that cost them?!!