Apparently crazy is catching. Darling Man used to be relatively sane in a crazy sort of way, but
my kind of crazy has now been implanted.
A couple of days ago, we were bitching about the funeral home carpeting in the house again. It's been on the to-do list since we moved in. It matched the gray/green color on the walls, which I've managed to eradicate everywhere but the master closet. But the carpet was a daunting project and other than doing the diningroom, we've put it off and put it off.
Thursday, I came home and Darling Man had ripped out all the carpet in the upstairs hallway and down the stairs.
We discovered that the subfloor was MDX, which is water resistant, but not waterproof. The previous owner had apparently baby-gated the top of the stairs, so little yappy dogs gathered there to bark and pee. The board at the top of the stairs wasn't in bad shape other than the fact that it smelled to high heaven of pee. No wonder the hall always smelled a little funky - even after repeated carpet shampooing.
The most pleasant surprise was that the stairs are actually wood. Beautiful pine that once sanded and stained should be absolutely gorgeous. The bottom three stairs, which curve around a 90 degree angle are oak and the pattern is fanned, which is quite lovely.
I decided that to do the job right, I needed to also pull off the baseboards. They went all the way to the subfloor and we'd need the baseboards to hold the new wood laminate down (I hate quarter round). I began pulling them off, which was a real bear. Especially since they were nailed on with GIANT nails. Some of the boards split, so I decided we'd do new ones, but keep the old as a pattern for cutting the new ones.
After I got the baseboards off, I started pulling nails out of the subfloor boards we were going to replace. THAT was a job! I finally got all the nails out after about an hour and a half and pulled out one of the smaller boards.
Rather than joists and an open hole, I discovered that the subfloor is on top of another subfloor with some kind of felting in between. Which is actually very good news. That means this house was very solidly built and isn't going to blow away anytime soon!
The stairs are VERY squeaky, and those will be my special project once the flooring (and the new paint job we decided we needed) is done. Believe me - no one is going to be able to sneak up or down the stairs - not even the cats - at least for a while.
2 comments:
I just love home improvements..lucky you guys can do it yourself..a big savings.
You are so lucky about your steps. Are you doing the work or your husband or both?
My husband is going to take the carpet off of our stairs but it's just ply wood so he is going to have to put wood over it. He says it's going to be a pain. He is saving that for last in our house renovations. Can't wait to see what yours looks like!!
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