Could this work?

[llnmaw]

We got some really large carpet remnants from someone for free. The intention was to lay down some padding and just lay the pieces down to form a semi comfy spot for a basement playroom. I had thought that I could use some carpet tape to attach the pieces together. We discovered that the pieces do not match. We don't want to go all out tacky and just lay odd sized mismatched pieces of carpet on the ground and call it a play room, as someday soon we will sell this home. We just don't want to spend the $ (actually don't have the $) for *real* flooring anytime soon and with it being winter - our kids need a place to play other than our 1100 st. main floor!

My idea:

Get that carpet tape and cut large, 16x16 squares(?? larger or smaller), of the two colors and make one patterned large room size area rug. The carpet is totally neutral and coordinates well. I have 6-8 fairly good size pieces to work with.

Will the rug stay together? Is that what the tape is for? Totally tacky?

Any other ideas for how to use this?

Thanks. (Bummer to think you've scored something and saved some money only to realize it may be totally useless.)

~L.

[texmati]

aww... that is a bummer, but I'm sure it's not useless. This may not be what you are after, but I've heard of people getting carpet 'bound' around the edges to make a huge area rug. you could lay that down with the rubber pad underneath that makes it 'non skid'.

[zersha]

The idea of binding sounds good. I don't think it would work for very long to try to cut them into squares and tape them down. We have some carpet that we had to install in sections with the tape, and it started coming up at the seams after about a year or so. It does lay flat normally, but when you vacuum it, it comes up. We actually only have one spot that really comes up, but it's right in the main traffic area, so I think that's why it came apart faster. I think a playroom carpet would have lots of traffic & use.

But maybe if you would only be using it a short time, it would work?? I think you'd have to be really careful about cutting the squares perfectly, otherwise you'd have gaps and they'd fit together all wonky.

I guess you'd only be out some time & the price of some tape if you tried it and it didn't work.