Nasty Carpet (Not an innuendo, I promise)

In the 8 months that Tara and I have lived in our rental house, we’ve been pleased with just about everything except the living/dining room carpet.  The people that lived there before us evidently had a small dog that peed all over the carpet.  Stains are one thing, but this stunk.  It was this weird, subtle smell that you don’t notice right away (part of the reason why we didn’t notice it when we looked at the house), but was practically overwhelming once you catch a whiff of it.  After months of fighting a loosing battle with the odor with home remedies as well as professional cleaning, we were ready for drastic measures.  Aware that there was a hard wood floor under the carpet thanks to a neighbor that knew the previous owners, I called the landlord and got permission to rip up the carpet.

The whole project couldn’t have gone better.  The floor under the carpet is immaculate, or as immaculate as it can be for being circa 1920.  No nasty surprises—we had the carpet ripped up, hauled out, tack strips ripped up, and the floor polished in 4 hours. Thus, like the dryer, Tara asked: “So why couldn’t we have done this months ago?”

Lovely color, isn’t it?

The process begins

You can see the stains!  Even the pad was disgusting.

Amazing wood floor that never should have been covered up

Goodbye tack strips

The final steps

I guess I don’t have any pictures of the finished floor with the furniture back in place.  Oh well.  Next step will be to replace those old ratty curtains.

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Tara saw the title and said: “Aandreeewww!”