Here it comes again! Another house project! This summer, we worked on the floor.
It’s been on our mind1, expecially on Will’s mind, for a long time. He had been saying, "Let’s change the carpet on our own2. Maybe we can do this and that…", and I always said, "How can we do it beatifully? I’m not really confident that we can do it at an acceptable level." Will was thinking about using carpet tiles3, but I didn’t like it so much if we can see the lines between the squares. I was quite hesitant4 about the idea, and actually I started thinking about paying a big chunk of money5 to have a professional to do a real job.
However, one day, at the college where I teach, I noticed that the floor that I always thought was a single big sheet of carpet, was actually done by carpet tiles. The lines were not visible at all and it looked really nice. Right away, I changed my mind — I’ll do the same thing at home! I was against6 Will’s idea of using carpet tiles, but that really blew my mind7.
We went to the store and carefully chose a kind of carpet which can nicely hide the lines between the tiles when we put them together. We bought about 80 pieces and we waited excitedly for our Obon break to come!
Finally, we worked on8 it during our Obon break!!
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Spending 3 days of labor, we basically finished it. From the entrance hall to the end of the living room, and also the landing of the stairs — now the floors are nice and clean and soft, and it’s really fun to walk on. I’m sure that our cat and dog also enjoy walking around the house.
I still have some corners to work on because I have to cut the carpet tiles to go along the zigzag/wiggly9 shape of the wall. It really takes time. However, when the carpet matches perfectly to the spot after my careful work, I feel so great! That’s quite a job, but when I remember the nice feeling I can get when it’s done, it’s a piece of tile, oopsy, cake10! (^-^;)
◆10 a piece of cake : 簡単なこと
注）
３ 和声英語です。日本語の語順をそのまま使って tile carpets としてしまうと、あの硬いタイルの材質のカーペットということになり、何が何だか分からないものの説明になってしまいます。carpte tiles とすると、カーペットの材質の四角状のものという響きになるので、まだ日本語で説明している物に近いかという感じです。
９ タイルもpiece で数えるので、もじって楽しんでみました。７も微妙に文字通り普通の意味とイディオムとしても意味を掛けています。
