A spilled soda showed me why we tape off eating areas

In my experience, I was finishing a bedroom install when a client's kid knocked over a full soda onto the new carpet. It soaked right into the seams before I could react. Your mileage may vary, but now I always use masking tape to mark a clear no-food zone for clients. Has anyone found a good way to politely set those ground rules? Take this with a grain of salt, but it saved me a lot of hassle later.

4 comments

4 Comments

hall.joel1mo agoProlific Poster

Masking tape can leave a nasty residue on new carpet. Blue painter's tape is the move, it comes off clean.

violaa291mo ago

Actually @hall.joel, painter's tape can still be risky on some new carpets, especially if they're a plush or high-pile material. The adhesive can grab onto the fibers and leave bits behind when you pull it up, or even pull the fibers themselves. It's way better than masking tape for sure, but on walls, not floors lol. Learned that the hard way when a piece tore off and stuck in my bedroom carpet after just a day.

tara6421mo ago

Used to swear by painter's tape for everything. Now I'll be more careful with carpets.

lindag331mo ago

Honestly I've had the opposite happen, painter's tape worked fine on my low-pile office carpet last month. Left it down for a weekend and it came up clean, no bits or residue. Maybe @violaa29 just got a bad batch of tape or something, because that hasn't been my experience at all.