Carpet No More!

The big news is after years of living in what I've affectionately dubbed "The Pink Palace", our primary source of pink is outside waiting for big trash pick up by the city!

We always said we'd wait until little kids are bigger kids to get rid of the carpet; meaning no worries about playdoh, spilled juice, muddy shoes, or any other floor attack. Maybe it was the brutal winter that kept us inside far too much, but this was the year we said no more to the carpet. Darling Ham House Mother took the kids for an unbelievably long weekend (The words Thank You aren't nearly enough!) and we spent our kid free time ripping up carpet.

The process involved removing the carpet, which Mr. Ham House cut into sections for easier removal. The carpet pad underneath was nearly disintegrated, making for a dusty mess. Ripping out the carpet was a pleasure compared to ripping out the staples...We pulled staples for four to five hours. We used a combination of screw drivers, pry bars, and pliers to wiggle, twist, and yank what appeared to be thousands of staples from atleast two carpets.

Aftewards I washed the floors with Murphy's Oil Soap, which included doing some major scrubbing in spots. We had to go back through and counter sink some nails, pull out broken staples, and do lots more vaccuuming, but it was certainly a successful project.

We expected the worst going into the project, and thankfully, got more than we expected! The floors are in great shape considering their age and wear. The best part is the look and feel of the house is much improved. Now back to paint stripping...

Two years later, back at it...

After a hiatus...we're back to update a few projects. Needless to say, it's been busy with an additional member of the Ham House. We finally decided we could no longer live with the wallpapered ceiling pink carpeted glory of our entryway so started ripping ripping ripping...and we all know what that leads to...more projects.

To give the project its proper credit here's the story -

Mr. Ham House thought we should tackle a quick project to make some more progress after some neglect so we thought, why not strip wallpaper in the upstairs hallway? Quick and easy, slap some paint up and one more project down... Of course the paper came off so easily we thought, why not start stripping the stairway too? If we are doing the stairs, why don't we do the entry? The rest, as they say, is a major project...

The two biggest projects so far are paint stripping and carpet ripping. I'll tell the story of the paint stripping in this post. The trim work is nothing special or unique, which is a bit disappointing for our 100 year old house. It' s just yellow pine which is intended to be painted. Ours is very painted. We've made it through about 4-5 layers of paint (in strange shades of tan) in addition to a layer of varnish. You might wonder why on earth we would strip wood only to paint it again. Unfortunately after years and years of living, there is too much chipping to be safe with little ones in the house. Plus there are huge chips that have been painted over, making for very sloppy looking trim.

We've been using Safety Strip, which is a no VOC soy based stripper that alleges to go through 10 or so coats of paint. Unfortunately ours seems to strip the top (I'm guessing) latex layer and only soften the next few oil based layers. The bottom coat and the varnish simply stay put and if lucky, turn to a semi liquid gunk that doesn't budge. Only Ham House father-in-law seems to have the skill to remove this stubborn layer.

We are fortunately nearing the end of the entry. The stair spindles are at a professional "dipper" to save us the grief and struggle of hand stripping and at $4 per post, this is quite a deal. Most of the trim has been sanded in preparation to be primed. Mr. Ham House bought new tools, so the project has some renewed joy for him.

Huge thanks to Ham House Brother-in-Law who was suckered into helping the first weekend of the project. Even "huger" thanks to Ham House Father-in-Law who has devoted the last few Sundays of his life to scraping and sanding. What a saint.