Project #3: Begone Carpet. Be. Gone.

Ugh.  Carpet.  Our little church had carpet installed in the early 90s and we were looking forward to getting rid of it.  It was a very dusty job.  It turns out that carpet padding holds a lot of sand and dust, as well as oodles of staples!  However, under this carpet are some pretty spectacular wooden treads.  They are warped and cracked, but that's part of their charm--something we are trying to restore.

There were way more staples than necessary, so it was slow going.  It took a variety of tools to remove them all: pliers, hammer, mini pry bars, and a chisel.

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One of the oddities I ran across was this thin wood overlay on the landing.  I suspect that it was an attempt to cover the cracks between the floor boards.  Wow...was it a pain to remove.  First off, the nails used to hold it down were HUGE--at least 2 inches in length.  And as you can see, it came up in strips.  But in the end, the landing looked great...better than the carpet and better than the wood overlay.  

Annette MessittComment