1st Project of the New Year: Floors!

Happy New Year! I made a couple of resolutions, but I'll get to those another day, because TODAY is a day for our first really awesome DIY project of the new year (and, actually, our first hardcore project at our new house ever)!

New Floors!
Get excited, people!

Our front room doesn't really have a purpose right now. Last month we had our tree up in there so it could be seen from the window, and we've had our dining room table in there to make it sort of a dining room. I've been wanting to put hardwoods in- I think the room will eventually be a playroom, and carpets are harder to clean.

Starting a new project also forced us to take our tree down, which I'm sure would've taken a long time otherwise. Here's what the room looked like once we cleared it out:

View from the stairs

View from the front door

Another reason I've been wanting to re-do the floors is because ever since we starting watching one of our friend's cats, Sinatra has been marking the carpet. It's gross, and I'm so happy we are getting this carpet out of here!

Check out our step by step carpet removal process (with pictures!) after the jump!



We really had no idea what we were doing- we've never replaced carpeting or put in flooring, so every part of this was new for us. To start, we tried removing the baseboards. The only tools we had were a screwdriver (with multiple heads) and a hammer. We put the screwdriver behind the baseboard and hammered it down to try to pry them off. It worked, but I ended up putting dents in the wall:

I tried it again on the longer baseboard, and it split.

It's not the end of the world because we were thinking about completely replacing them anyways, so this made our decision pretty easy. We did label the boards and the walls in order to measure them so we would know how long of pieces to buy at Home Depot.

Here's a quick PSA on why you should buy high quality tools: Cory tried to remove some of the nails out of the floor and two tries into it this is what happened:

Good thing we had backups.

Once we saw how far down the baseboards went, we decided it would be a better idea to pull the carpeting up first, and then remove the baseboards. It was surprisingly easy to pull up; the padding was a little harder, as it was stapled down and ripped pretty easily. This made it so much easier to get the baseboards off. About an hour later here's how it looked:

While I was taking the baseboards off, Cory had the super fun task of trying to get the tack strips off. When they were installed, they were not only nailed into the floor, but stapled in as well. After trying for awhile with a hammer and screwdriver only to have them splinter into a million pieces, Cory gave in and went to Ace Hardware to get a couple mini crowbars. They really helped, and all of a sudden they started coming off in whole pieces.

While Cory finished the tack strips, I tackled the pee stains. Once the carpets were up, we realized that our cats were not the first ones to mark on it. I researched a lot online about different ways to remove the smell, and ended up using a combo of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, dish soap, and water.

To start, I poured the peroxide all over the stains and then sprinkled them with baking soda. I did a couple rounds of this, and then sprayed with water and scrubbed the floors. Then I did another round of peroxide on the parts that still smelled off and sprinkled baking soda over the areas and let the mixture sit until there was a paste. I sprayed again with water and then scrubbed with the sponge. Then I took a tiny bit of Dawn dish soap and scrubbed the spots, sprayed with water and then let sit until dry. It was a long process, but it really seems to have helped. There is still one spot that I might need to do another round on.

We finally got the carpet and padding out of the room so Cory could tackle the rest of the staples and nails.

Once everything was cleared out of the room, Cory got the ShopVac (that the previous owners so kindly left for us in our basement!) to take care of any remaining wood scraps.

Now that the old flooring has been removed, the next step is installation! Cory had to go to work, so we are letting the floor dry from the stain removal process and continuing the flooring process tomorrow!