h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, perhaps 'lay' is the wrong word... but 'afix' maybe more acurate.

Say, for example, there was this mental sod, who decided it'd be a kinda freaky thing to buy a sufficient quantity of carpet (all assorted unmatching odd bits of 'off cuts' ) and afix them to the awalls and ceiling in a room...
Now, with the walls I figure a few scres at the top and some double sided tape to keep the mid/lower sections close to the wall, and maybe more screws at the bototm oughta do the trick.... or woudl it?
But on the ceiling.... I'm not sure double sided tape alone would be very good, and I don't think I can find out where the rafter/beams are in order to nail/screw into them, and as its plaster board type stuff I don't think nailing/screwing directly into that would do much more than take the plaster board off the ceiling...
Also... I'm guessing I oughta avoid foam back carpet and try for hessien type backing or it'd be... messy
Please the reasoning behind this is... well 'reasoning' perhaps too strong a word'.... ,erm>

Glue?

mini

I think glue would probably be the best way. Cover the entire ceiling in a thick contact adhesive. Of course, you wouldn't be able to stretch the carpet to make it fit smoothly. You'd have to roll it out from one edge and get it right the first time.

You will need at least 3 fire extinguishers in various places about the room

get some plaster board anchors

attatch some battons to the ceiling

screw the carpet to the battons

Take the ceiling off, taking care to make pencil marks at the top of the walls so you can line it up again properly when you put it back. Turn the ceiling over and put it on the floor. Introduce the carpet to the ceiling. Dim the lights, play some soft music, perhaps a drink or two. After a suitable courtship, the carpet will bond with the ceiling. At this point it may be old-fashioned, but many traditional carpet-fitters say that it is important to marry the two together properly. If you are sure you want a permanent bond, use a Catholic technique. If you think you may want to change your carpet from time to time, go Protestant. If you are using multiple carpet tiles, I'd recommend a Mormon marriage.

Leave the two overnight to consummate the bond, then re-fit your ceiling the next day.

Job's a good 'un

You need a 5cm gap at the top of either set of opposite walls in the room. This lets the carpet through. Behind this stand two people on ladders who must make sure the carpet is taut. If they do this by "common sense" they will pull each corner as hard as they can, and leave an unintentional gap in the middle.

Therefore, you use the rolling pin strategy - get them to roll the loose ends up around a cylindrical centre which will gather all the loose bits by distributing the pulling force along its length, more evenly than if it was pulled at four corners.

Now, that was the easy bit. The hard bit is to make them stay up the ladders.

sod it... I'll use drawing pins

Move yourself and your house to Australia, and you'll find that *presto!* Your ceiling is now your floor!

Simply affix the carpet in the normal manner, then move back to the UK.

Job done.

RF

If it's magic carpet, just say, 'Carpet, arise'



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Problem with the Catholic method mentioned above is you'll soon be overrun by little throw-rugs..

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Seriously, contact cement is the best way to go. I've made cat scratching/climbing poles using a similar technique, affixing indoor/outdoor carpet to both interior and exterior of heavy cardboard concrete post forms, referred to locally as 'sonotubes'

You'll need to coat both the ceiling and the carpet; allow glue to become non-tacky*; place newspaper between carpet and ceiling to allow positioning without bonding, (the newspaper won't stick, as long as the glue is dry enough); when carpet is positioned, remove newspaper and press carpet to ceiling.

The larger the carpet pieces, the more difficult the job, so keep 'em as small as possible. You may be able to purchase a quantity of carpet samples, which are usually no more than a foot square, iirc.

*speaking of tacky, please tell me the carpet is not shag

I always like a nice deep pile on the carpet, and the cat will often oblige.

Make square frames of 2 by 1 or 2 by 2 about 4 feet square (depending on the size of the ceiling and where you have light fittings.) Enough, anyway, to cover the area of the ceiling, chequerboard fashion.

Nail or tack the carpet to these frames and then suspend them from hooks on the ceiling. As they're not being walked on or moved, the edges of the squares shouldn't fray, and so the joins shouldn't be very visible.

Give it a really thorough vacuum before putting it up otherwise it will shed fluff constantly.

Subsequent vacuum cleaning will be a b*gg*r.

PP

By the way, 2Legs, you can find out where the rafters behind your plasterboard ceiling are. The plasterboard is nailed to them. You can buy a little metal-detecting gizmo which will beep every time it is near a nail. Plotting the position of all the nails, you'll find they are in straight lines, and these mark the positions of the joists/rafters.

YOu know... I'd never thought about detecting the line of the beams/rafters like that
Any ideas with usinga frame or putting up cross struts/panels might be made awkward in this room as the ceiling kinda slopes towards one end... (it is ment* to slope BTW),
Surely I can just hoover the carpet once up in the normal way... albeit upside down

Those little off cuts of carpet was waht I'm planning on using, the idea is to get as many differnt opposing clashing coloured sections so they'll look absolutely hidious once in position on the ceiling and walls and doors. (I plan to get one section of carpet the exact right sid eto just screw/nail into the doorframe of the door at one end of the room thus covering the door entirely) This may* all end up being far more hastle that for which the situeation calls

Whooooo! Stop any talk of glueing anything to the ceiling, quite appart from fire risk it will` mean having to put a whole new ceiling in when bored of having carpet on a ceiling or trying to sell the house. Also the weight of carpet glued on ceiling might well pull it down on top of your head with the plaster board too!
..
No if you must do this then you will need to screw into ceiling joists to take the added weight.
Presumably you will then screw some sort of plywood to ceiling and affix small squares of carpet to that, possibly using carpet takes if the carpet squares can be securely fixed. A screw in corner of each carpet tile would perhaps be safer along with the tacks.
To be honest it sounds like a big job to me!

I'd hate to wake up drunk in that room.

maybe ask the people that make coaches, they always seem to have carpet on the ceiling, although i do often find myself wondering why!

mini

I think I've got it....
how does this sound:

at say two foot intivils, but starting from teh corner of the room on one of the long walls (repeated on the opposite long wall), and ensuring each end of the wall has one; attach a wooden block to the very* top of the wall.
From these wooden blocks, stretch either piano type wire, or strong* string of some description, and to the string/wire attach the carpet, so that the carpet is say about 5 MM from the ceiling.... (can't make it much lower as its got a low ceiling in here anyhow)... if that makes sense

Sounds good, but where will the rest of the piano go?