"Be thankful in all things, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." I Thes 5:18

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The "I Hate Carpet" Chronicles


So, yes, our carpet was getting old, ragged, stained.....gross! I'm not talented in carpet maintenance or clothing either when it comes to stain fighting. I'm relaxed with my kids too which does not help. I love family picnics in the living room on Friday nights as much as they do (though I don't spill my drink as often!).
But, it wasn't really the living room that started this adventure, it was the dinning room. Our modular had a carpeted dinning room. When we moved here, it had all ready lived through a family with two small children and our three were no help. Caedmon was 2 when we moved here, Emma near 5, and Victoria near 8. These are not the years of throwing food from the high chair, nor are they the years of fine linen cloth dining.
I remember the first big stain like it happened yesterday. The
kids were homeschooled at the time and I read on the paint bottle before art to check and see if the paint was washable. It said it was. So, I let them paint at the dinning room table. Well, the black paint spilled on the carpet and say what it wanted to, it did NOT come out. It may have smudged to dark grey but this was not enough to appease me.
As the years went by, the real culpret were those black spots that appear seemingly out of nowhere. We would stain treat them, and like some evil magic marker, they would come back again. My hatred for carpet began in those days but each coffee spill that would not come out, each playdough drop that made it's way to the carpet (despite my best efforts), each glance at the muck that came out of my vacuum, fed the carpet monster in my mind.
So, one day I think in September, 2010, I just ripped up that dinning room carpet. I was willing to live on whatever was under there, as long as I could sweep it.
To shorten my long story, I'll dive right in.
We decided to start with Caedmon's room. It was to be our trial run. We had not intended on doing his room this soon but when we bought our vinyl, it all was on clearance for 44 cents/sq.ft. and there was just enough parque vinyl to do his room. I figured being a very sim
ple square room, would make the job eaiser and I'd practice for the rest to come. I'm very glad I did, I did learn a lot.
Step one, put your son's room in your dinning room. Step one/a, go insane trying to live normal life around it
Step 2: Get little man set up with his homework on top his moved out dresser next to his guinea's who had to be put in a temporary cage with treats to keep them busy.
.



Step 3: Rip out all carpet,and remove closet doors.



Step 5: Get yourself geared up with an empowering Facebook profile picture, and proceed to hammer out all the staples and carpet wood trim in the room. Make sure to get a cute picture of your husband helping you in his Hanes.





Side step: take requested photo of little man's creation he moved onto after homework was done. :)



Step 6: log the event well with photos of the very first vinyl tile going down. Ignore terrible hair.


Step 7: continue on until you can't do anymore that night. Take picture next morning before proceeding.

Step 8: Complete! In great joy, take final picture.


A few days later, on President's Day, Rick and I started ripping the living room carpet.


I decided since this was the last stretch, I'd get a picture of what lies beneath, the food of my hatred.....THE DIRT!!!
THIS, MY FRIENDS IS WHY I WON'T EVER DO CARPET AGAIN! To think, that I lived on this, sat or lay upon it to play with my kids, allowed babies to crawl upon it, vacuumed it often and called it "clean". Yikes.



In order to get rid of THIS ABOVE you have to go through caous EVERYWHERE, for a LONG while, grab corndogs for easy dinners, and dream of the "now" pictures to come when you are done!



Looking for brighter days ahead.

5 comments:

Tricia said...

I look forward to seeing the finished rooms.

Karen said...

Alicia! First, I love seeing our old house getting a wonderful makeover out of love! It's so neat to be able to keep up with our first "real home"...and to keep up with you! Second, I'm cheerin' for ya! We destroyed about 1000sqft with a huge remodel in our first home in Idaho and the disaster looked JUST LIKE YOURS...ohhh the memories lol! Living in that chaos about pushed me over the brink...but remember, you WILL live through it and it WILL be amazing when you are done! We too took all the carpeting out of the huge dining/family area (ooooh my, we could have filled a sandbox with what was under that horrible carpet) and laid snap lock hardwood. You will be sooo happy to be rid of that carpeting!! Keep at it!! :-)

Kristen Borland said...

Wowzers, you've been busy! LOVE the facebook picture. We all have our priorities, and I'm glad you stopped to pose for that. :)

Alicia said...

Gotta stop and take those moments! :)

Joan said...

Caed's room looks so good! Good job, Alicia and Rick! Can't wait to see the pictures of the finished product!