You know when you start something and it grows into a mammoth task?

Yup, well that was us today.

OH and I took up our old Persian carpet in the sitting room.   It has been a job pending.

The rug is huge – 3.5 x 4 metres and weighs a tonne.

But we folded it up (I know, I know, never fold a Persian rug, always roll it), possibly along with the cat and two dogs – who knows!

And then we saw just how filthy the wooden floorboards were underneath.  The rug hadn’t been lifted for 20 years, I am slightly ashamed to say.

So OH and I spent the afternoon, vacuuming, scrubbing (a hands-and-knees job done by OH), while I found my dusty steam mop and spent hours looking for the instructions!  It worked very well too.

Anyway, we are letting the sitting room floor dry properly and will put our new-to-us Persian Kashan rug down on Friday, which we had picked up earlier in the morning..

It is equally huge and very beautiful.  We rolled it up and it is in the back of the van for the time being.

My back hurts a lot now.