Carpet Fever

Yesterday our new carpet was installed. If you know anything about our work over the last 6 weeks, you know that everything was leading up to the carpet installation. I knew that having paint anywhere near our new carpet even with a drop cloth would be a dicey proposition. (I was reminded of that again last week as I was painting the bathroom cabinet, and I saw paint sailing off of my brush into the hallway.)

The installers were to be here between 8 and 9 in the morning and they showed up at 7 am. I thought this was great since I had been up since 5 am waiting. I estimated it would take them 3 hours and they would be done. I didn't go upstairs, but I could hear them hammering and pounding on the tack strips and the carpet. At one point they came downstairs and started working on the stairs, so I figured they were about done.

Sometime around 1 pm when the taller heavyset one who spoke English took a break,, I realized they were not going to be done anytime soon. He told me he was going to take a quick run up to Hagerstown and he would be right back. Knowing that Hagerstown is about 30 minutes away I figured this wouldn't be as short of a run as he thought.

At this point I had finished all of my paperwork and calls and was starting to get cabin fever as I was trapped on the first floor of the house with the stairs being a work in progress. They had been there over 6 hours and other than the water bottles I was giving them they didn't appear to take breaks or eat for that matter.

Finally around 3:30 pm, the worker bee, the stout, quiet one of the duo who carried the entire piece of carpet for our master bedroom up the stairs on his back, finished. I figured his co-worker would be there in a few minutes as both of their phones were chirping at them all day and they were speaking in rapid Spanish to the callers.

The worker bee went upstairs and when it was eerily quiet for a while I started to wonder. He had already vacuumed and taken all of the bags outside, so I couldn't imagine what he would need upstairs. As I rounded the landing on our stairs I could see him laying on the floor in the guestroom taking photos of himself with his cellphone. This seemed weird, but he was still fully clothed so what did I care. I then proceeded haul our furniture and boxes up the stairs.

His friend eventually returned and after 9 1/2 hours of our carpet hostage crisis we were proud new owners of beautiful new berber. And for everyone who wishes to visit, be prepared, you are no longer allowed to wear shoes on our second floor.