One Room Challenge Week 2 – Ripping Up the Carpet

October 11, 2017 by Ruthie 7 Comments

Well here we are with week 2 of the One Room Challenge hosted by Linda at Calling it Home.  We got a TON done this past week!  It all started with ripping up our old carpet.  Here is a picture of how it looked when we moved in….yes it looked nice but just over the past few years and kids it has not worn well.  It had a bunch of dark areas and we couldn’t get it up with cleaner or rug cleaning.  It also smelled like stinky dogs on a rainy day.  (The previous owners had a couple dogs.)

It was a no brainer that this needed to come up!  You couldn’t lay on the floor without smelling the stink.  New floor it is!  We ended up going with this amazing vinyl flooring by Allure Flooring.  You can purchase it at Home Depot.  This specific line is their grip strip line.  It is sooooo easy to install!  I kid you not we installed the living room and hallway in one evening!  We started at around 8pm after our girls went to bed and finished around 1am.  All we had left to do was one strip down the hallway and a couple rows in the living room.  That did take us a couple hours but the only reason it did was because we had some crazy angles.  BUT we never had to step outside to cut the pieces.  All you do is score it with a box cutter and break it in half!  I’ll get into more detail soon as I’m going to do a Facebook live while I install it in my kitchen!

So back to prepping the floor for installation.  My husband started by ripping up the carpet.  He cut it down into a few strips so that when carrying it out to his truck it wouldn’t be too heavy.  Look at him work! 🙂

The next step was to rip up the carpet padding.  This was the most tedious part of the demo.  It was very soft and easy to rip out but it was stapled to the ground with hundreds of staples.  We set up the pack and play and filled it with toys so the girls could play while I sat down and started removing the staples.

After all the padding was removed it was time to clean up.  We removed all the excess material and swept and vacuumed and swept and vacuumed again until it was nice and clean. 🙂  The subfloor was in pretty good condition but unfortunately we still needed to install some luan because the floor from the kitchen and dining room were higher than the living room.

Since I didn’t have to worry about getting paint on the floor I got to work on painting all the trim and woodwork.  I started with the windows.  I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to look at our newly painted trim!  It really brightens up the room!

I waited to paint the baseboards as I knew they could get scratched up while the luan was being installed.  We had never installed luan before and weren’t sure we had all the proper tools so we enlisted in our friend/contractor for some help.  He installed it while I was out of town with the girls so I came home to a smoother and more level floor!

After that was installed I got to work on the baseboards.  We decided to leave the baseboards in and then install quarter round.  We weren’t sure our baseboards would hold up if we ripped them off the wall so we kept them there.  I’ll have a tutorial on how to install quarter round in the next couple weeks!Before we installed the new floor though we decided to leave our mark on the luan.  Maybe some day if we move and someone decides to change the floor they’ll see our cute little drawing.

Stay tuned for the reveal on the flooring!  It’s absolutely stunning and I can’t wait to share it with you!

To Do Checklist:

• Remove carpet
• Add luan to subfloor
• Install new flooring
• Paint woodwork & trim
• Install panel moulding
• Replace couch
• Buy new chairs
• Buy new ottoman
• Install ceiling fan
• Paint staircase
• Redo lamp
• Replace floor lamp
• Redo tv console table
• Redo end table

I’d like to thank our sponsors for this room makeover.  Without them this room would not have been possible!  I feel so fortunate to work with such amazing companies!  

Sherwin-Williams  |  Metrie  |  Carousel Designs

HomeRight  |  RYOBI  |  Allure  |  Lamps Plus

Happy Wednesday everyone!