The news at our house is, EVERYTHING IS A MESS!
I'm very happy about it!
What?
We're getting new carpet, at least upstairs. The basement will have its day but not yet. I decided that since I don't have a regular job right now, I could do the carpet rip-out. I must be using some rather dormant muscles because I wake up SORE!
It's hard work but rather satisfying.
To make it more manageable, I cut the carpet into strips. Then, I just pull and pull until I have a piece off. I roll it up and put it in a big garbage bag, then, I start pulling up the padding. It doesn't pull up smoothly so I always have to go back and pick off the broken pieces of it. I learned to do that part quickly as Bode, it turns out, believes carpet padding is yummy.
Next, I got a little stool and sat down with a pair of pliers and hand-picked the staples out. There are tack-strips around the edges of everything but I'm leaving those in place for the attachment of the new carpet. It is a bit risky as those tack strips have little nails pointing upward. It's really best to NOT step on them. Trust me, you know when you've done that!
The man who is laying our new carpet heard that I was plucking staples by hand and kindly offered a scraper tool for me to use. I declined. In fact, he offered it several times and I continued to decline, stating it wasn't that hard to pluck out the staples. One day, he just couldn't stand it anymore and brought the tool over to me. What do you know? It is a job that now takes just a few minutes. You slide it across the floor and it pops out most of the staples. Those that don't pop out are sheered off. Either way, all I have to do is sweep them up!
Next, I'm painting KILZ over any spot on the floor that looks like it may have a pet stain on it. If you ever need to use KILZ, you need to know there are several kinds of it. If you are dealing with pet stains, don't wimp out and choose the water-based KILZ. I did that in our basement and learned that it just doesn't do a good job. This time, I chose the oil-based KILZ and it works well. However, good ventilation is a MUST. It has a very, very strong odor that lingers. I opened all windows and it still took a full day to remove the odor after I'd just painted the floor in 2 rooms.
Our carpet-layer-guy has already completed those 2 rooms. He is working us in between other jobs so Monday he will return to do a bit more and then later next week come back to finish the job. The biggest mess is simply that I have to pile everything from the rooms being carpeted into the dining area. The Rose Room has been the worst. This is the room where I have miles of fabric and skeins and skeins of yarn, not to mention oodles of containers with our jewelry-making supplies. It is my favorite room, but all those things made for quite a mess in our dining area!
I don't mind; I'm just so excited to have new carpet!
Reminder:
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Simply leave a comment at our store blog:
Next Friday we will place the names of all commenters in a hat and draw for the winner!
1 comment:
yay for new carpeting!! It looks beautiful!
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