The Transformation Begins: Hidden Hardwood & Heavy Lifting

This is what was hidden under the vile carpet. I know, it doesn't look very pretty now, but IT WILL. Refinishing the floors is the only thing (besides a few small electrical things) that we will hire professionals to do. I may be cheap & unrealistic about my own abilities in renovation, but refinishing floors is NOT something we want to tackle on our own. But I can wield a utility knife. Which is what I did to the carpet. Cut it in strips, rolled it up & threw it away. Bye bye nasty carpet.


Unfortunately, the carpet pad had been glued down. Like, seriously, the most glue that could have been slathered on those planks. I had to use a heavy metal blade thingy to scrape up as much of the crumbly pad remains as possible.


I know there is beautiful wood under there somewhere...and fortunately I don't have to do anything more to it. The refinishers will get rid of the rest of that pad & glue. Yay!!


Now on to getting rid of more filth. In one day, Vino & our nephew Evan hauled out 2 couches, about 7 recliners, a giant 70's wooden headboard, a king sized bed and boxes & boxes & bags & bags of trash.


Evan saved our behinds. We could have NEVER hauled all that stuff out by ourselves, especially the heavies. Thanks for loaning us your giant muscles, Evan!


Vino cut out the huge pillow stuffing in the pet hair covered couch on the front porch.


Here they all are stacked up.


And the couch gets hauled away. Vino & Evan swore that as soon as the sun hit this furniture the smell factor increased tenfold.


This is the dumpster we rented. By the end of the day it was completely full and then some.


And here we have the fridge. Our home inspector warned us not to open it. After having been turned off for months, whatever was in there had time to rot itself into a powerful death smell. So we believed him and duct taped it shut before moving it out.


Even with all that, it still smelled pretty ripe when we stood close.


Good riddance!

Every day the house smells better. Minus the carpet. Minus the upholstered furniture & trash. We Febreeze every time we come to work but that only goes so far. Next on the agenda: paint. First a coat of stain & odor blocking primer, then paint in soft greys. I can't wait!