The day we closed on the hose we headed right over to begin tearing up the carpets. We knew there were hard woods underneath, but had no clue what the condition of them would be like. I was convinced there was going to be a massive lime green paint spill smack in the middle of one of the rooms. Luckily for everyone, there was not.
We picked up a carpet knife at Home Depot and got to work. The carpets easily came up when a corner was pulled, but then we did have to cut it into pieces in order to remove it from the house. Carpet is HEAVY!
What we found was amazing! The floors were in phenomenal condition. We spent two days pulling staples out of the floors where the carpet pad had been stapled in. I seriously think there were about 4,000 staples in all. Once we completed that Al removed all of the tack strips around the perimeter of each room. He used flat bars (a mini pry bar) and a hammer.
The only area that needed some work initially was in the hallway. There were rubber strips that likely once were non slip, grip like things to hold an area rug in place. Those were tough to remove. We ended up resorting to Goo Gone, salt, the Swiffer and solid elbow grease. I started the process by letting the Goo Gone soak for a few minutes.
I then scrubbed the best I could and removed the first layer. After that, Al broke out some salt and sprinkled that mixed with Goo Gone. He scrubbed that really well and was able to remove the remaining layer of what ever was on the floor. When we started out it looked like a giant game of tic tac toe.
To finish off we vacuumed all the floors and mopped them with the Swiffer. Down the line they’ll likely need some work, some sanding and refinishing, but the time being they’re better than we could have ever imagined!
The carpet that was in the house was brand new. They had installed it when they put the house on the market and it was only on the market for about two weeks before we made an offer. So, because the carpet is new and clean we’re going to attempt to salvage it for the basement. We have a lot of work to do on the basement floors before we get to the carpet point, but for now, we’re just psyched for the wood floors on our main level!
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