It's Gone!

The awful carpet is gone!

We were planning on ripping up the Awful Carpet on Monday, after moving books off the shelves and emptying corners, taking everything out of the old wardrobe, cleaning up weird accumulations under the couch etc...Instead, Ron had just about finished the living room when I got home from work today. Yikes! And with the 4 1/2 year old's help. Just a bit left under the aquarium (which takes special effort to move) and the chunk in the hallway (an irregular square really.) After a brief adjustment period wherein I came to grips with the fact that I wouldn't be relaxing anytime soon, I got busy. We finished scrubbing and oil-soaping the floor, moved everything back to its proper place (and left a few odds and ends out of the room, just to enhance the new look), and Ron hauled the rolls of carpet and bags of padding up to the garage. I fixed dinner, R. took a shower and a few ibuprofin, and voila! A brand new living room. It's great.

We knew there was wood flooring underneath; our bedroom and my studio have the same wood, though it's obvious that the living room has been carpeted for the better part of the age of the house (which was built in 1955.) The other rooms show lots of wear, but the living area is still in good shape -- except for a handful of random disappointments. There's a bad stain near the front door, where wetness was obviously allowed to stand long enough to cause mildew and warping in an area the size of a luncheon plate. And at some point before this latest iteration of carpeting, some asshole removed an old carpet by slicing it out in sections without lifting up on the pile. So there are five knife-cuts running across the grain, evenly spaced down the length of the room. Argh! So we will probably have it refinished, eventually. It still looks pretty good though.

The husband has been especially productive this week -- he started fixing the holes in our retaining wall as well. Give that man a Klondike bar. I'm impressed.