What's Under There?

Well it certainly wasn't gorgeous hardwoods. When we first visited the little château Mr. O and I were thrilled when we pulled up a corner of the gross carpet to reveal hardwood floors. Unfortunately once we completely tore up the carpet we found a bit of a mess. Saying they needed some repair work would be putting it mildly. At the top of the stairs we found about a 12 square foot patch of cracked concrete with a damaged plywood subfloor. Disaster.

The least of our concerns was the fact that the floors had been painted a hideous doo-doo brown with a white spray overlay. Here's another pic:

Ehhhh ...

Pulling Carpet

I had never ripped up carpet before so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was really easy. All you need is some heavy duty tape, a knife (a specialty one for cutting carpet is best because the blades last longer), a pry bar and hammer, and some gloves. Pick a corner and give it a good yank. Then take your knife and cut the carpet into about a 3 foot sections or whatever is manageable for you. Roll the carpet with the carpet side in and tape to hold the roll in place. Then do the same thing with the pad. By the end of this you'll have a mountain of carpet rolls to take to the dump. Or the recycling plant like we did. :) Green your routine, y'all! Depending on the size of your space it will prob look something like this: Then you've got to get up your tack strip. Be careful cause those things can hurt you. I wore gloves. Shimmy your pry bar under the tack strip and wack it with your hammer to get it good and under there. Then push down and the tack strip will lift up. You'll probably have to do this a couple of times before the strip will completely pull from the floor.

Then toss your tack strips and get ready for new floors!