DIY your floor with carpet tiles

DIY carpet tiles are one of the easiest floor coverings to install.

You simply lay the squares on the floor; adhesive strips and the heavy backing hold them in place. You can finish most rooms in a day, if not an afternoon. And you can use it anywhere. You can add whimsy to a kids' playroom or create an elegant look in a formal dining room.

DIY carpet tiles also make great area rugs for laminate or tiled floors. Cleaning, replacing or swapping squares is easy too. They just pull right up - even after they're adhered. You can clean off stained squares in the sink or replace them - now that's what I call child-proof!

You will need:

Tape measure
Chalk line
Carpenter's square
Craft knife
Belgotex carpet tiles

Plan your layout

DIY Tile is the convenient, versatile décor solution for any environment in the home – tiles can be fitted to a clean floorbase as a rug or wall to wall installation – the hardest part may be choosing a design. Sketch the room to scale and use coloured pencils to draw in the squares. Your drawing will tell you how many squares of each colour you'll need.

Existing flooring

You can lay carpet squares directly over concrete, vinyl, tile, laminate and some hardwood finished floors.

Installing DIY tiles

1. Clean the existing floor well to remove any dust or grease.

2. Snap a chalk line across the room. Starting at the centre of the room where the chalk lines intersect. Dry-fit the carpet tiles - don't remove the adhesive strips along both chalk lines to test the layout. If you end up with gaps less than 10cm next to walls, shift the layout and snap new baselines.

3. Peel the film off the adhesive strips and butt each square tightly against the preceding one. Don't adhere the last full square until you cut the final square to size. After you cut the square, add two adhesive strips so there's one in all four corners. Then adhere the final pieces.

Hints and tips:

- Cut DIY tiles to fit around corners, walls, as shown in the images.

- Create a patterned effect by alternating various colours in your installation and match colours to create your own pattern.

- When creating a DIY Tile rug - use a dark colour as a border and lighter as the centre to create that authentic rug look.

- Follow the installation instructions on the pack for best results. – Janice Anderssen