If I haven't made it clear, I have a lot of work to do on this house and I don't have a lot of time to do it in. I set out with a plan: Get rid of anything that smells bad, fix up the bedroom and bathroom, move in and do everything else later. It sounded easy, but shockingly it hasn't been quite so simple. You've already seen how fun the wallpaper removal was and that was done relatively fast. Carpet removal should've been one of the easier jobs, but as it happens, it's been the biggest hold up. The den and kitchen both had carpet padding that rotted and stuck to the floor underneath it. Attempts to scrape it with commercial floor scrapers were futile and I was forced to move on to other projects.

I did a lot of research online and none of the solutions I read about sounded like they would work for me. I contemplated a lot of solutions, ranging from the semi-rational (cutting out the sub-floor), to the ingenious (lighting the padding on fire and letting it burn off), but none sounded quite right to me. Worst of all, I even considered hiring someone to do it for me. In the meantime, I moved on to the top floor, painting the master bedroom and removing the carpet. While removing the carpet in the master bedroom, I had to remove the metal strip that covers where the carpet connects to the next room and I had an idea. What if I removed the strip between the den and the foyer, maybe there would be a way to get below the tile and scrape from there? With little hope, I removed the strip and inspected the floor beneath it. The tiles were the old kind that people used to use in their basements (probably with asbestos, but I'm pretending that's not a possibility) and didn't look like they'd come out easily. For the second time in my life, I was wrong. Using the floor scraper. I was able to remove all the tiles, along with the carpet padding, in just a few hours.

When things go right, they go right and I was able to get carpeting removed from two more bedrooms, the stairs and the dining room in just a few more hours. Unfortunately, the kitchen situation is a little worse. There's also a tile floor under the carpet padding, but unlike the tiles in the den, these won't come up so easily. I've been able to remove a few tiles, with a paint scraper and my hands, but it's time consuming and not all tiles come up. It's also very messy and difficult to breathe in there.


Update: I managed to remove all the carpeting on the lower level and I've moved onto other projects for now.