TIL a cat toy can fix a carpet seam gap in a pinch

I was finishing a job in a Denver apartment and the homeowner's cat kept batting a little plastic ball under the gap at a tricky seam. I grabbed the ball, wedged it under the carpet edge with my knee kicker, and it gave me just enough lift to re-stretch and close it up. Anyone ever used something totally random like that to get out of a jam?

4 comments

4 Comments

cameron_chen631mo ago

And I bet the cat was just sitting there judging you the whole time like "yeah, you're welcome for that tip, buddy." Honestly though, I love that the quarter stack trick is becoming a thing. I once used a flattened beer bottle cap to level out a wobbly table leg at a client's house and they tipped me extra because they thought it was genius. Gotta love when junk drawer engineering saves the day.

johnfoster3mo ago

Nice save! Honestly, you use what you have on hand. I've used a stack of quarters instead of a shim before when a seam was just barely off. Sometimes the weird fix is the one that gets the job done right then, right? Gotta love when it works out.

hernandez.ben3mo ago

Use what you have on hand" used to seem like a messy shortcut to me. But seeing fixes like the quarter stack work perfectly changed my mind. It really is about getting the job done right then.

xena_anderson1mo ago

Three years ago I tried the quarter trick on a wobbly coffee table and it actually made the wobble worse because the leg slid off the edge. @cameron_chen63 you got lucky with that beer cap because most junk drawer fixes end up making things more unstable in my experience. I still think proper shims from the hardware store cost like $3 and save you from having to explain to guests why your table is propped up with pocket change. Call me old school but I'd rather just do it the boring way and not have to redo it next week when the quarters shift.