Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Remember when I found a condom under my carpet?

Yes, I'm sure you all remember the start of the Great Baseboard Project of 2012. In true Strand fashion, we half ass nothing around here and we go big and expensive or we don't start at all.

I have some flooring news. Just hold your panties and bite your lip bitches, WE HAVE CARPET. We have like legit carpet free of stains, smells, contact with a used condom, not falling apart and doesn't leave you feeling like you maybe caught the next plague after walking on it. This carpet squishes between your toes. You see where the vacuum has been. You want to roll around on it all day long even though it used up your entire tax return. You don't even care because it's so glorious and so much more than you thought it could be.

But, before all of that happened, it had to be installed. And oh what a to do that was. I don't think you appreciate the amount of shit you actually own until you try to combine three rooms of shit into one. You have to get creative.
 That was my dining room before my bed and couch were shoved in there. Matt and I moved it all the night before the carpet installers came and holy nightmare. I purged as I went but it just doesn't matter. I also don't recommend that you pack your clothes in first so you can't get to them because you will wear dirty underwear the next day. *The More You Know*.

Then once that was all moved, we started ripping out the old carpet because you got a cheaper install price if you did that. Matt was confident it wouldn't be an issue. He started with the stairs since that carpet wasn't actually attached except for the top stair and maybe one half way down.
 Then he started ripping up everything else up. It was disgusting. We learned several things:

1. The carpet was significantly wet at one point as there was huge stains on the wood floor.
2. The wood floor was in ROUGH shape and Matt had to re-cut a plank that was snapped in half but someone used concrete filler to fix it at one point.
3. The wood was filthy. To say filthy is not even close to what it was like but you know I was in there sweeping and mopping it several times before I went to bed that night.
 So you can kind of see how jacked up the place looked.
Oddly enough, the guy whop put the carpet down didn't use tack strips or whatever, he just stapled the carpet to the floor. Which meant we had to pound in a lot of nails and pull out a lot of staples. We were both exhausted by the time we went to bed, but we had to be up extra early the next day.

I went to work, Olivia went to school, Jackson went to my mom's and Matt stayed home to supervise installation. The guy was so nice and he did a fantastic job. Everything looks so much better, it's really night and day.

The best part? As he was finishing up, Matt and Jackson went to get supper so I stayed back to supervise. The guy said our house felt weird and I just casually say, "Oh yeah, the house is actually kind of haunted? Lillian was probably making sure you didn't fuck up her house." His face was priceless. But he is a general contractor apparently and so I was asking him about my po-dunk front porch which looks like it's been through an earthquake and he said if it were him he'd rip it off and rebuild. Oh awesome. JUST what I want to hear.

But I bet you want to see pictures of the finished product? Well you get that tomorrow. As well as a story about the cubby hole.

6 comments:

Jen Mc said...

Don't you love home improvement projects? Glad it's all coming together for you and I can't wait to see the finished room.

Ruth said...

We are planning on remodeling the master bedroom this summer. No clue where are putting everything.
Looking forward to it. Yet I am not. But, it needs done. Badly.
I can't wait to see your cubby.

Jo-Anne's Ramblings said...

Home improvement always starts with a big fat mess around the home.....

Ang said...

I can't believe the motivation you guy shave to do this... I can't wait to see the finished product!

Shannon @ Bungalow960 said...

I can't wait for cubbyhole story time. Also, I am so glad we don't have carpet. With the cats it's a god send. We only have carpet on the stairs, but we're going to rip that up and redo the wood. Nothing is grosser than old carpet.

Julie H said...

Do you think your house is haunted? My kids always say we have a ghost. Maybe that's why your daughter can't sleep haha

We had indoor/outdoor carpet in our house when we bought it. DISGUSTING. I spent many hours picking staples out of the wood.