Ditching the Berber

Let's just say that berber carpet is NOT my favorite type of carpet.  Our last apartment had berber, and there were so many loose strands and dirt filled in every crack. It wasn't comfortable and didn't look clean.  So our house had almost the exact same carpet as our apartment, but add 6 years of dog dander to it, and it officially is my least favorite type of carpet.  We've mentioned the previous owners had dogs, but I'm not sure if you're really aware of the dogs they had. We've been told they had "litters and litters" of Great Danes in and out of the house. The carpet was filthy. It smelled, it was itchy, and it made you dirty when you walked on it.

Berber carpet in our last apartment

When we saw this house for the first time, we were hit in the face with the stench of a dirty dog smell. Right about now you're probably asking yourselves, "Then why did you pick that house to buy?" Exactly. We still ask ourselves that.  We never got the answer of why this was the house for us, but we do know that it IS our house and we have and will make it our own.

So the carpet was a no brainer.  It needed to be replaced. And that was the first thing on our mind when we got the keys.  Julia and Greta met us at the house, we gave them a tour, and we immediately started ripping out the carpet.

Brandon grew up building houses with his dad and his brothers.  Crazy right? I grew up having a dish night every Tuesday, and that seemed like a lot of work to me. I can't imagine building a house!  So to say the least, I didn't know anything coming into this process. But I sure have learned a lot! So if you have questions, please feel free to ask.

Brandon grabbed his utility knife and started cutting the carpet, pulling it out in large pieces, we would roll it up, and threw it into the garage.  We did this with the pad as well. This was SUCH A DIRTY JOB!! We could tell the carpet was filthy, but when we started to take out the pad, dirt was everywhere. Even in our lungs and sinuses. Gross! Who knew carpet was that dirty underneath?

 

Dirt on the sub floor after the carpet was taken out.

The next night we removed all the staples in the sub floor and removed a bunch of the tack boards where we installed hard flooring. The following night we swept up all the dirt, and used a shop vacuum to get rid of all the large items such as staples and carpet pad pieces.

We had some really good helpers!

Greta helping sweep up all the dirt in Jack's room.

Shop vacuums work wonders with this type of job!

The sub floor was finally cleaned! But we discovered a few stains that worried us, so we sprayed the entire first floor with Killz Primer (2 coats) to seal the pet smell so it wouldn't come through the new carpet.

                                            

I can't show the after picture of this view until we reveal the hard flooring, but look how uncomfortable it looks without carpet!

We saved a ton of money ripping out the carpet ourselves. It wasn't fun at all, but it was worth saving the money. I was asked if we did this again, if we would just pay someone to rip it out. My answer is no. We were able to get nicer carpet with the money we saved.



 The carpet we chose:

We chose Shaw carpet, Tuftex line, nylon carpet with a semi-tight twist. The color we chose was "Fleeting Fawn." We were told that once carpet is in the house, it will look lighter than the sample, so as a rule of thumb, to go a shade darker than what you want. Well we did and it is a little too dark for our taste. But nothing we can do about it now. And the color has warmed up to us and we both really like it now. It is clean and simple, but looks classy and attractive. (Did I just call carpet attractive?! What's gotten into me?)

Can you see those baseboards?!  Keep checking back and you will see more of them.

Here are some before and after shots.

The Loft/ Washer and Dryer closet:

Before

Loft without carpet.

After

Loft with old carpet.

Loft without carpet.

Loft AFTER with new carpet.

Stairwell:

After carpet was ripped out. Plus the tools we used to take out the staples.

AFTER

Again, we can't show too many of the rooms with carpet because we have some other projects to reveal in future posts and don't want to give them away!

You're getting to see some of the painted walls in these pictures. Don't focus on that. Another blog post is in the making to show you all the beautiful wall colors in our house. Stay tuned!