Real life | 9 July 2011 | The Spectator

One day in the early Nineties, a trainee recruitment consultant looked down at their carpet and thought, ‘I wonder what’s under there.’ And so began a mania for exposed floorboards that has had the British professional aspirant class in a vice grip ever since.

My twenty-something upstairs neighbours are currently in this grip. Nothing will dissuade them from the notion that tatty old bare boards are fantastically chic and fancy and that they have an inalienable human right to walk upon said boards, making an unholy racket.

I simply cannot understand it. When I was growing up, bare floorboards were a matter of shame. A family’s prosperity was measured by the depth and silkiness of their shagpile. Adverts for Allied Carpets and its perpetual ‘greatest ever sale’ were ubiquitous in the part of the Midlands where I grew up. Ever more elaborate kinds of Axminster were the talk of every household.

And it didn’t stop at carpet. Although I was only three, I remember in detail the day we took up the old blue kitchen lino and laid better lino that looked like it might be tiles. When we got actual tiles my mother was as happy as if I had married into the royal family. Eventually, we got so posh we had rugs on top of carpet. I still aspire in that direction. In some parts of my flat today, there are so many layers of floor covering I worry that my head will meet the ceiling if I lay much more. If you wanted to find the floorboards you would need an archaeological team led by Tony Robinson.

I’ve gone for Italian slate in the hallways and kitchen with the living room and bedrooms carpeted in the best weave the oriental carpet showroom in New Malden can offer.