Kicked To The Curb

Then taken out back and shot to the dump!

Here's a quick run down of what we ripped out and evicted from 9808 last week.

Day One

• The carpet leading to the basement. I didn't even want to walk on this thing in shoes it was so gross and smelt like a big wet dog.

As D and I were walking up the stairs to call it a night after sweeping the basement, I wondered out loud how hard it would be to pull up the carpet. "Let's see" said D and within 15 minutes the gross stair covering made of dog hair was history.

• The weed garden along the front of the house and attempted to tackle the weeds on the right side of the front door. The ground is as hard as cement which makes for back breaking work.
• The mailbox on the front screen door.

Day Two

• The front screen door.
• The ceiling fan on the deck.
• The leaky kitchen faucet.
• The leaking pipes under the kitchen sink.
• The carpet in the basement.
• The random fence panel in the front yard.
• Attempted to fix the leaking bathtub faucet (we need to order a new part).
• The gross discoloured Plexiglas panel above the bathroom counter.

• And lastly the carpet from the main staircase.....

Those of you who have been paying attention may remember that I posted about our Stairway To Heaven a few weeks ago. The main floor staircase in the house acts as a focal point. It's steep, original and worn from years of use. The risers are high and 80% of the stairs creak underfoot. It  definitely needs to be sanded and re stained in the future but for now I love it just the way it WAS!

For reasons we can't begin to imagine, the previous owner decided to carpet the staircase before we moved in. Please note that this was done AFTER we closed on the house. So the last time we saw the staircase it was happily carpet free.

The weird thing is they went to the trouble and time to do the installation properly. Well as "properly" as everything else in the house has been done. By doing this they have now shortened the timeline in needing to refinish the staircase. They took the time to nail in tacking strips and glue down underlay. They didn't take the time to remove any debris from the stairs before fixing the carpet down though. D found used Xacto blades and strips of staples sitting on top of the underlay under the carpet. Oh Jeez! In all fairness, they may have wanted to carpet the stairs in order to protect them when moving the furniture down but I would imagine using a piece of capeting or blanket would have worked just as well.

So my once beautiful (to me) stairs are now marred with nail holes and glue residue (and the odd missed staple here and there). But at least they are back to being carpet free.