Category: My House

I got brave one day about a week before Christmas and decided the bedroom carpet had to go too. It was the ugliest burnt orange piece of nastiness. Luckily, I knew there was hardwood underneath it, but I almost didn’t care. It was too gross to stay. But as you can see, even though the pad was much newer than the mummified stuff in the front room, it was still old and creepy and…this time…

wherever it was deteriorating, it stuck to the floor.

No, no…I’m not kidding. It was really stuck. But I’m a sturdy mountain woman…

so I got out the equally sturdy shop vac and scraped and hosed it all up.

I’m certain that someone much smarter and waaay more savvy about such things would have told me not to do it this way. But you know, whoever that was, wasn’t here and I was actually feeling pretty dang clever.

And this time, I dragged the creepy orange carpet outside myself. We’ll talk about the ugly porch rock some other time.

 Of course, I get that it needs the tack strips yanked off and a good, hard scrubbing…

but hey…

anything beats burnt orange…shag.

You know I’m right.

Every time I come over to the house to just “hang out” I’m excited to see what has happened since I’ve been here last.

Baseboards are being cut and painted.

The back bedroom is getting a few more coats of paint.

There’s a pretty little corner turning thingy that’s awesome…

and even a new beam separating the kitchen and the living room.

So much stuff that may seem little, but I’ll certainly never take it for granted again.

Our goal is to be in by Christmas.

Do wish us luck!

One, not so happy thing about my cute, little house was that whenever we would walk in to work on it–the first thing we’d notice, coming in the door, was the ancient…ahem…smell. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like a dead animal in the walls or anything, it was just a nose-twitchy, kind of old, old, OLD smell. Usually, someone would say, “Yeah, gotta do something about that smell.”

But you know me, I’m just happy to be here, so I didn’t care as much as the rest of the gang did.

Then one day, April said, “You know mom, I bet that nasty old smell is coming from that nasty old carpet.”

What carpet? You mean the 150,000 year old green stuff in the family room that’s obviously been here since the pioneers strolled into the valley? THAT carpet? Why would that be a problem?

But, it made sense. So one day, when I was all alone and no one was looking, I started yanking.

And to my surprise, the nasty old green carpet just pulled right up–almost like it was thrilled to be going to it’s  final resting place–at last, at last. Happy to oblige, creep.

I shoved it around for a while before I realized that it was waaaay too heavy for me to drag out of the room on my own. So I decided to work on the padding. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Till I looked more closely. Was that some kind of powder coming through the back of the pad?

Ummmm….no, that was the pad. Apparently, it had been pounded to dust from 45 generations of people trudging over it since the reign of the Roman Empire. Dang Romans.

Some of it behaved well enough, and even rolled up politely…

until I tried to move the rolls. The stuff just disintegrated in my hands. GAK.

I couldn’t really stop and scream for help, so I just kept going, all the while, thinking–should I even be breathing this junk that has, no doubt, been kicking around since the days of Caesar? But I misplaced my gas mask…so I forged ahead…bravely. You’ve have been proud.

It’d be fair to say that it was a huge mess. Huge.

At least it swept up kindly enough.

Then, good old Rhen came along and carried out the nasty old carpet–like it was a bag of chips. I tell you what–with this guy for a son it’s like having a string of oxen of my very own.

And so much more tidy.

Ahhh, out–OUT, nasty, old carpet! Your house stinking days are over. 

Hey, come to think of it…what’s that I smell? 

HA! It’s nothing. Just as it should be.