house progress

[boogieshoes]

well, my goal this Christmas week is to get the office ceiling and trim painted, and the carpet replaced.  I also want to work on the kitchen trim and that little hallway's trim on that side of the house.  i have 1 coat on the ceiling, and the carpet up.

i don't think carpet ripping is supposed to be a two-day job, tho...  but at least i now know how to do it:  take the sill plate/ finishing plate off the doorway, so i have a place to start.  rip up all around the edges and into the closet.  cut at the closet doorway, and in half down the room.  roll up, take to garage until garbage day.  take the underpad out, which is fortunately a) much lighter and b) just taped together.

TAKE A SHOWER!  oh dear god, that was nasty.

i also decided to dig out the dust masks for today - the picture on them has a guy using a fine-grit circular sander.  but i feel *much* better after wrestling with the carpet today than i did yesterday.

now i need to find some saran wrap and tape it to the cement slab.  they didn't put any kind of vapor barrier under the carpet, and as bad as it smelled, i rather suspect the padding and carpet were wicking up moisture like no one's business.  we certainly have enough of it around here.

-bs, the handy

Comments

[samuraipunch.livejournal.com]

Since you're just tossing the carpet out, take a knife to it and cut it into more manageable sizes for pulling up. Although this might not be a great idea if you know there's a nice hardwood floor underneath in other rooms. You might also want to find something a little more durable than normal saran wrap. It'll wear and get cut up from foot traffic.

Masks are great and all... But they're just as annoying to use! When I was in NJ helping out after Sandy, the masks helped keep from breathing in all the crud. But made it more difficult to breath too.

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

masks really *are* annoying! but yeah, it helped in the long run, just *ugh* while wearing it.

the saran wrap is to check and see how much the cement is 'sweating', if at all. you tape about a square foot down on all sides and over the next few days watch it to see if it gets moisture inside the saran wrap - that tells you if you need a moisture barrier between the cement and the carpet padding. (thank you Holmes on homes!) but yeah, saran wrap isn't good as the moisture barrier itself.

i think my floors were originally all carpet except for the linoleum in various places (kitchen and bathrooms, mostly). but i'm definitely going to cut up future carpets in 'bite-sized' sections, so to speak. for replacement carpet, I'm looking at carpet tiles - since i'm doing this alone, i figure that will be easier by far for me to handle.

*hugs samuraipunch* happy holidays!

-bs