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living & dining rooms, part 1:
tearing out the carpet
heaven has hardwood floors. so does hell.
Our first project, a dark
episode in our lives hereinafter known as "Tearing Out the Carpet", will
undoubtedly shock you into speechlessness if you don't run screaming from
the room in terror.
The project itself was
deceptively simple and we expected that with some hard work and cleaning,
we would be enjoying the luxuries of beautiful hardwood floors in a
relatively short amount of time.
The
Living & Dining Rooms Before
Yep, horrible orange and
brown shag carpet as far as the eye can see. It was about twenty years
past the end of its life, smelled of stale smoke, and left a fine film of
fibers on our shoes when we walked across it. It was long past time to put
the thing out of its misery.
The
Living Room After
Okay, so there were
stains. We weren't surprised -- the former owner had two small dogs and
after ten days spent cleaning the kitchen, we knew all too well what kind
of housekeeper she was. Still, you can see the lovely pattern of the two
types of hardwood used in the floor. Sure, the stains aren't going to
disappear completely even after it's sanded, but all-in-all, it's in
pretty good shape. It has character. And since we figured it would be the
worse of the two rooms, it's encouraging. We were excited to do the dining
room and figured it would take us less time.
Which would've been funny
if it had happened to someone else.
The
Dining Room After
Note that the pictures
you've just seen were not faked or modified in any way. And keep in mind
that those pictures were taken a week and a half after the carpet came up,
after it had been swept, vacuumed with a shop vac, and scrubbed with
TSP...twice. In fact, we were getting ready to sand the floor when
those pictures were taken.
Realizing that there was
no salvaging this floor but that structurally, it's fine (i.e. none of the
wood is rotten), we decided to paint it. Someday, when we have some money,
we'll put down a new hardwood floor. But in the meantime, this was a good,
workable solution. And at least we can walk on it now.
It didn't go smoothly, of
course. It never does. We had trouble with the sander -- the one we rented
sucked rocks in a major way -- and the worst of the spots wasn't
completely dry so sanding it was somewhat impossible. We weren't going to
wait the months it would take for it to dry out, though, so we managed.
Yeah, yeah -- you're not supposed to sand, then primer and paint over wet
wood. Then again, the Laws of Home Improvement are null and void when it
comes to this floor. We did it anyway.
The floor speaks for
itself.
The
Finished Dining Room Floor
It took us a full day to
sand the dining room floor and another full day to put down the Kilz
primer (nasty stuff, that) and two coats of paint. We didn't have the
time, energy, or money to sand and finish the living room floor at the
same time but that's okay. A good scrubbing with TSP and it looks pretty
nice.
(UPDATE: We finally
painted the living room floor when we painted the living and dining rooms.
We also repainted the dining room floor because of a certain Spot of Doom.
The overall layers of Kilz and paint can now be measured in inches. The
more layers of stuff between my feet and those spots is a Very Good Thing,
says I.) |
