One of the things that we weren’t expecting to do was deal with such filthy carpet at the new house. Prior to closing, I had even borrowed a carpet shampooer from a friend, thinking that we of course would want to clean the carpets, but also wanted to save money and didn’t want to hire out.
But then we did our final walk-through. And we slowly began to realize that not only would a little carpet cleaner not do the job, but there was NO WAY we would be able to live with these carpets even if they were professionally cleaned. The stains from who-knows-what were so widespread. I shudder thinking about what things happened to that carpet. So we made the decision to RIP IT UP!!!
safety first!
Underneath the carpet on the first floor, we found hardwood floors! We were very excited at the discovery when we pulled up that first corner. But our excitement faded once we saw that it was parquet flooring (just not our style). No biggie, though, we can deal with that. But when we kept pulling more we found that the floors are not in great shape, and whoever did a previous paint job must have decided that drop cloths weren’t necessary, because there are paint splatters ALL over the floors. Sigh. Just something else we get to replace eventually!
dining and living rooms
family room
Upstairs we weren’t so lucky. Only plywood subfloor underneath. The bedroom carpets weren’t as stained as the downstairs. But they were bunched up, and not wanting to imagine the full extent to how dirty they were anyway, they just had to go too!
master bedroom
front bedroom
back bedroom
In the livingroom and the front bedroom there ended up being some water stains on the floor, but they were pretty mild. The previous owners had fish tanks, which based off of the listing pictures, were housed right where we found the stains, so we chalked it up to that. However, when we reached the back bedroom we were in for a little surprise. Remember how they had torn out the tub/shower in the main upstairs bath? Well, maybe that was for a reason.
Leak much?That’s some lovely black mold on the wall and floor. So… added to the to-do list for the very near future: cutting out and replacing drywall and flooring. Fun.
Anyway, back to the carpet… After the main rooms were taken care of, we had to turn our efforts to the staircase, where it got a little more tedious. Who knew there needed to be that many carpet staples on a single step! We found more parquet flooring just on the small landing mid-way up the steps, but the stair treads are made of what seems like a cheap particle board. The corners on the open steps were all falling apart after taking off the carpet. Looks like new stair treads and risers has also been added to the list of upcoming projects!
upper stairs
lower stairs
Since we were work full-time, this all lead to some late nights, but the initial removal of the main rooms and the bulk of the stairs actually went a lot quicker than I expected. We ripped it off, rolled it up, and dragged it out! Luckily Chad has a trailer, which has come in handy countless times, so we just loaded ‘er up. As we’d find out later, apparently 6 rooms and a staircase equals 900lbs of carpet and padding. Yikes! Score for getting a residents pass for the local dump! It ended up being pretty inexpensive to unload.
Every night after work for the next week I was pulling up carpet staples. Talk about hand cramps! I eventually learned which tools and techniques worked best on the parquet floors, subfloor, and staircase. I wish I would never have to put that knowledge to the test again! But we still have carpeting on the basement stairs and one area of the basement, so I’m sure I will!
Around the same time we were doing the carpet removal, we also were trying to give the house a deep clean, but those stories shall be saved for another day…