Remodel????

Want new flooring, and a new paint job? A couple of days on my project, and you won’t!

Wednesday I moved stuff all over, covered up what was left and painted the living room ceiling. The I taped the trim, vacummed the walls and got ready to paint them. Those activities were after a trip to the local big-box home improvement store for paint. Pretty good day. Uncovered everything and vacuumed before Papa got home.

Thursday well…..I remember that D1, the main upstairs resident will be out of town for work three days next week. We are planning to paint the stairs and add rubber/plastic treads. I have to paint the stairs while she is gone.

Yesterday was interesting. I dress to go to Big Box for paint. I look downstairs and decide I have enough paint for the wood trim on the living room windows and banister. I take off clothes, and put on grubby clothes. From there, it is downhill:

1. Open shop vac, see cement and sawdust. Empty into a garbage bag. Vacuum up the mess with Dyson. Schlep bag to garbage can.
2. Roll shop vac to bottom of stairs. Climb up stairs with stanley knife and hammer.
3. Pull up edge of carpet on landing. Throw it down the stairs.
4. Go to basement, look for needle nose pliers on workbench.
5. Organize workbench. No pliers to be found.
6. Go back up 2 flights of stairs.
7. Scrape crumbled pad into a garbage bag.
8. Pull the “easy” nails and staples.
9. Vacuum step. Take photos.
10. Move down a step.
11. Pull carpet off step.
12. Throw it down the stairs.
13. Walk to the computer, send Papa an eat-mail about the needle nose pliers
14. Repeat 7-10.
15. Walk downstairs to the computer.
16. Check the city website to find out how to dispose of carpet.
17. Measure carpet, it can’t be more than three feet wide and 60 pounds per bundle.
18. It’s 32 inches wide. Hurray!!!
19. Walk up the stairs.
20. Repeat 11-12.
21. Give up on scraping pad, repeat 11-12 until carpet is off steps.
22. Bundle carpet, tie with twine, schlep it to the garage.
23. Pour a coke.
24. Vacuum living room carpet so the guck won’t track everywhere else in house.
25. Realize this is ridiculous.
26. Take out meat for supper.
27. Start typing a crazy blog post. Take some more photos.
28. Check e-mail, the plies should be in the basement somewhere.
29. Walk to the bottom of the steps
30. Scrape crumbled pad and plastic tread under it into garbage bag.
31. Climb up one step, repeat 30 until all the steps are scrapped.
32. Schlep the three bags of guck to the garbage can.
33. Realize you are covered with orange/red/crumbled carpet pad.
34. Put an old blanket over the couch, sit down, eat lunch.
35. Look for the needle nose pliers again, and find them. Hurray! Get an old screwdriver, too.
36. Pull all the staples, tacks, nails and everything else from steps.
37. Be glad you had a tetanus shot a couple of weeks ago.
38. Vacuum, steps, living room, etc.
39. Realize the carpet needs to be removed from the bottom landing to paint the last step.
40. Pull up carpet, tack strips, staples, etc.
41. Roll carpet, carry out.
42. Bag pad, staples, rest of the mess and schlep to garbage can.
43. Vacuum again. Remove covers from furniture. Collapse

Papa and I decided last night that the rest of the living room carpet needs to go this weekend. It’ll be a mess, but it will be out. We will also shop for new trim (they used to call it “mop board”, remember?) and other supplies for next week. The bummer, the flooring probably won’t be here for another week and a half. Oh well. I could have bought it locally and paid much more. Instead, I’ll have to wait.

OK, just to let you know how ugly this is:

From the bottom, just after I started. You can see the banister, which we painted brown to cover the green it used to be. I sanded it already. You can see the grey at the edge of the steps, their first incarnation. You can see the burgundy, but not the green that is under it. The ugly carpet is obvious. I can tell you, it never showed any dirt. None.

See the hose of the shop vac? Vroom Vroom!

Right before I finished pulling all the padding off. Everywhere you see orange, that’s a staple holding padding. Ick.

I’m not sorry this is done. I’ll show the finished product next week, after I paint it.