Bupata Buhhhhh

I am more than excited, my house is getting to be near completion. The big capstone happened on Tuesday the 1st when we got our new carpet installed. Honestly, it was one of the happiest days of my life. The carpet that was in before was pretty nasty, I couldn't bring myself to walk on it barefoot. There were stains all over the living room, upstairs hall, stairs, family room and downstairs hall and not knowing what caused stains of that magnitude was beyond gross for me. I did recognize one stain in the hall upstairs, it was a black little kids hand print (no, the kid was not black, the stain was black). We ordered the carpet 3 weeks ago and to finally have it in is such a relief.

To save money we decided to rip up the old carpet ourselves. The guy at Home Depot said he ripped up the carpet in his living room and it took him about 20 min and we knew our removal was much larger so would take more time, we were thinking around an hour to an hour and a half. As with most things in our house the project ended up taking up much more time, six and a half hours longer than we thought. No one told us the pain in the rear that removing the tack strips would be. The carpet and padding removal itself did take about 30 min all, and the rest was us hunched over prying the tack strips and staples out of the floor. The worst was the ones on the stairs, my hands got very banged up and I don't think they will ever be the same again. The first night we worked from 5:30 to about midnight and had to get up again at 4:45 the next morning to make sure it was done by 8, when the carpet people were supposed to get there. I have learned a very valuable lesson: sometimes its better to pay people to do certain projects and not save the money.

The carpet people were supposed to be there between 8 and 10 am on Tuesday and they showed up at 9:58, talk about cutting it close. Then the real hell began. Because they were doing the major rooms in the house I really couldn't do much without getting in their way so most of the day puppy and I hung out in my room with nothing but the TV. We did make it outside to potty and run around a few times. Then to top things off they had to crank the heat up to near 90 degrees to soften the carpet and make it stretchable. One of the times I took the puppy outside I noticed they had opened the garage, without asking anything, and took it upon themselves to rearrange my garage. I can understand that it would make it easier to get the carpet in but they moved my brand new couches off the old carpet and onto my nasty garage floor and tipped one couch on its side on top of a pile of old tack strips. Then they moved my puppy's pee pads and (he doesn't have the best of aim yet and occasionally misses the pad and hit the ground) was stepping in some pee. I was pissed, I tried to tell the one guy he was stepping in pee and tracking it into my house, he gave me a blank stare and proceeded to walk into my house, onto my new carpet. I had moved one of the couches back onto the carpet and they pushed it off again. I don't think it came out very nice when I explained to them that they were brand new couches and the garage floor was disgusting and black and that's why it was on the carpet. Then I noticed the couch laying on the tack strips. I don't think I was very nice at this point but they moved everything back and left them alone.

By the time Ross got home they had finished with the upstairs and we quickly moved our furniture in and set up our living room. Its so nice to be able to use that space and to have a nice place when people stop by. We still have a few touch ups to do and need to finish the crown molding but I am very happy with how it looks. We just have the kitchen to finish up and we will be done for a little while. The more we do the more it feels like home and the more I like it.

I didn't notice the placing of the vacuum when this picture was taken, there is a big hole in the wall behind the vacuum. Too bad you can't see the bloody boogers in the pictures, it makes it harder to appreciate the end product :)

When we pulled the carpet up in the living room there was some nasty stains on the wood. It makes me glad we went with the padding that doesn't let anything through it either direction.

In this picture you can see that we haven't finished the crown molding totally and we do have some touch ups, that you can't see, to make. When they laid the carpet it scraped some of the paint off. So in the process of working on the house Ross has learned to cut corners for (not the cheating kind of cutting corners) the base boards and crown molding and I must say it looks really good, again, hard to see in the pictures. I think he missed his calling in life, the corners he did look very professional. I also learned how to patch holes in the wall. There was a big hole to the right of the electric outlet on this wall and I am pretty proud of my patch job.

It is so nice to have this room almost finished. Its much nicer when people stop by to have a presentable room and to have a place for them to sit. For us its such a big change that sometimes when I walk down the hall I have to stop and just stare. We got the family room almost done as well, so I will hopefully post those photos soon.