New Carpet -- Did the Demo Myself

Smart Girls DIY has moved to SmartGirlsDIY.com and this post can now be found here
Carpet is one of those things best left to professionals.  Or so I thought.  I've been wanting to get new carpet in our upstairs since we moved in.  The carpet wasn't great then, and after 4 years with my kids it's down right disgusting.  It's like I have pets, but they're human.  Let's not forget the brilliant move {that he still tries to defend} made by my hubby who used BLEACH to "clean" the carpet in my son's room.   Yeah.  Really happened. 

Needless to say, we NEED new carpet.  And I want to build a loft bed in my son's room  and I refuse to do so until we get new carpet.  But we can't afford new carpet.  Hence the email from my husband last week...

From hubby, to me:

       http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-install-wall-to-wall-carpet/index.html

       Looks easy! What do you think?

       Let's do it this weekend.

From me, to hubby:

      No. Carpet is for pros. I'm not buying a stretcher etc.

That was on Tuesday.  On Wednesday I'm at Lowe's looking at in-stock carpet.  I brought home a few samples and figured I could at least do the demo myself, then hire a handyman to install the carpet.  I already got the # of one guy from a friend.

We were playing phone tag with the carpet guy for a few days, but decided to clear all the furniture out of my son's room while he was taking a bath Saturday night.  Who needs new carpet, my kids were EXCITED just to run around in the empty room.  Thrill-a-minute around here, boy!  Most of the pics I took are with them in just their undies.  This one's more appropriate.  :)

The little guy got to room with Smart Jr that night.  I think she let him stay in there Saturday and Sunday night and then she kicked him out.  He spent the next two nights with "sitda" or "sister" as he usually refers to my little Lulu.   

 

I tore out the old carpet and padding before church the next day.  I cut it into 3 ft.-ish sections, just like all the advice always says.   It really was simple.  Cuts like butta right through the back side of the carpet.  Hubby went to Home Depot on Sunday and purchase the carpet pad while I was at a field hockey game and youth group.  That was pretty much the extent of his help. :(

Notice the rust stain near the vent cutout on the section I've already folded over. 

Lets stop and take a look at the tack strips.   You can usually leave the old tack strips in place, unless they are damaged or the tacks are rusty.  Ding. Ding. Ding.  We have rusty tacks here, so out come almost half the strips in the room.  At first I thought the rust had to do with the vents, but I'm pretty sure it's because of water coming in through the windows.  Boo.  What's that?  You want to know what all that stuff on the walls is.  Me too!  It looks like there's been a little wall art going on in here.

On Monday, during the 2 hour window while my kids were in school, I peeled up the old padding.  This was a little more annoying than the rug because it crumbles.  But still no biggy.  It would have been smarter to do this last week, which was before bulk trash pickup.  Oh well.  There's always next month. I spent the rest of my day doing the most annoying part, pulling all the darn staples out of the floor from the old padding.  Freaking annoying.  But done.  I tried using a floor scraper to save time (as recommended), but found that I ended up back to using the cats claw.  And I lied, I spent most of my afternoon at the playground with the kids, but then it was back to work.

While I was taking out the padding, I decided I definitely needed to paint the trim before I put down the new carpet.  Painting base molding with carpet down is so annoying.  It will be much easier and looks much better to paint it while the carpet is out.  But let me be honest, there was a bit of blood involved.  Painting behind a tack strip is tricky.  Enough said.

Then I figured since I was painting the trim anyway, I might as well paint the entire room.  Of course I did.  Duh. I mean who in their right mind would take out all the carpet in a room and not paint the walls?  Not this girl.  So Monday night I painted the room.

Tuesday I gave a second coat of paint over all the spots I missed while trying to talk on the phone and paint the night before.   The color is Valspar Ultra Mint Gala.  I've already been told it looks too girly.  Whatever.  It will look great when I'm done.  :)

Then I danced around on the plywood and had a little party.  No, but I did jump around a bunch looking for squeaks.  I marked each squeak with an X and then went back and put a screw in each X.  And it was just that easy.  No more squeaks!

I was still waiting to hear from the handyman guy to find out how much he would charge to install the store bought carpet.  But I was getting antsy...  so stay tuned for part 2 -- the instal!

- Smart Girl