I see a pattern here ... a pattern of trouble!(A Carpet Installer's Notebook)

The carpet was a face-to-face Wilton from, hmm I don't know if I should mention the company's name as I will be speaking in less than a flattering light of them by the end of the article. But in the same vein, I want you to be aware of who it is so you can watch out for this "pattern of trouble" I have seen from them.

So what to do? Well, I'll give you a couple of hints. The company name rhymes with the name of a city just north of Wilkes-Barre, PA. You know where Joe Biden was raised, where Hilary learned to shoot as a girl and had a shot and a beer during the primaries. What? Still don't have it? OK, where Dunder Mifflin paper company from the show The Office is. What? Still don't have it? Ok, Ok, the name of the town is Scranton.

I digress; the carpet was a face-to-face Wilton, with a set match 3'3 1/4" (one meter) being installed in a large upper hall and on a curving staircase as a runner. The main part of the upper hall took a piece 13'2" (4 meters) x 18'. There was a back hall off to the right side that needed a piece 6' wide x 10' long with the pattern shift. On the left side was a sitting area with a closet on each end that needed a piece 5' wide x 16' long with the pattern shift. Great; simple enough, right? 13'2" x 16' split down the middle, trim the selvage edges, the right side of the fill piece goes to the left side of the main shot, the left side of the fill goes to the right side and we're off to the races. Not so fast; as I prepare to trim the edges, I find my pattern and from the back I count rows on each edge to make sure I am cutting at the same spot in the pattern on both sides. Doing that I find there is nothing to trim except the selvage scrim extending past the edge, no face fiber rows to remove to get to a clean edge. The edges are all roughed up, naps untwisted, and the tops blossomed (Photos 1 and 2). I put the seam together and it was a horror show! I took it apart and trimmed off one row from each side to try to get into some kind of a clean edge. The rows are only about a sixteenth wide and I was willing to try to sacrifice a bit of the pattern to get a better seam. I even taped back the naps with masking tape to keep them out of the seam (Photos 1 and 2). It was to no avail; the seam was ugly, all because I didn't have enough to trim for a clean seam. I explained all this to the customer and said I would talk to the mill.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

So, I call this carpet company, whose name rhymes with Scranton talked to their tech guy. When I first heard his name I thought, "Wow, I'm talking to one of the founding members of The Kinks." Anyway, he was great, and said, "That doesn't' sound right. Can you send me a piece of each side?" I said, "No problem I can send you a one-foot piece of the whole width."

The long and the short of it was they sent me enough carpet to replace the two seam areas and paid me for my time to redo those areas. The seam was fine and the customer was happy (Photo 3).

The lesson here is that the mills will work with you, if you communicate with them.