Floored by flooring

[jeriendhal]

So next week we're having wood laminate flooring installed throughout the first floor and on the second floor landing. It's expensive, especially given my lack of job currently, but an absolute necessity given horrific state of our carpet and the fact we're going to be getting China Girl in a few months. To save a little money I'm ripping up and disposing of the old carpeting myself. It's proving a chore, since it turns out the padding under the carpet was so thin (1/4 inch of cheap foam) then in several of the heavily trafficked areas it's essentially become molded to the plywood underneath. Which means I've managed to break my wallpaper scraped trying to gert the crap up. The worst area, at the bottom of the stairs where Maxx tended to pee in his final months, actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I scrubbed the area liberally with bleach and hot water, and what was left of the padding bascially dissolved as I mopped it up. Horrible mess though.

And yes, this time I was careful. I opened all the doors and windows and had a fan running to clear away any clorine that might have formed.

Should finish yanking up the old carpeting by the end of the weekend. The hardest bit is going to be getting to what's underneath the entertainment center, which involves moving our 36 inch flatscreen, which weighs a bloody ton. FOrtunately Steve is going to lend a hand with that Friday evening.

Comments

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

I remember what a mess it was when we had the carpet taken out of this house when we moved in. Bleah. And I didn't even have to do the work myself! You must be bent over like a little old man.

What kind of laminate are you putting in? We got Pergo for the areas that had already had a tired parquet flooring.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

It isn't as bad as it could be. For once I'm rather glad I live in a dinky little townhouse. The backbreaking part was picking up the laminate from Home Depot and moving it into our house myself (saved $100 right there). We're getting Pergo as well in a nice shade of Cherry wood.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

That's the color we picked, too. It really warms up the house (color-wise, I mean).

Good luck getting it in!

[wolfstormdancer.livejournal.com]

If you were in the New Jersey area I would lend you a hand.