Weekend Warriors

This weekend was a do-it-yourself fest. My mom and brother came out to help me rip up the carpet since it still smelled bad and was still pretty dirty. I was slightly terrified to rip up the carpet because earlier in the week I had started taking down the wallpaper in one of the bedrooms (aka the office) and found...paneling. Wood paneling with all this wood trim in the corners, base, and top. Under the wood paneling? Funny you should ask! Looks like it is the original plaster, in rough shape. All the trim seemed to be covering the gaps where the paneling didn't exactly meet. I stopped working and waited until this weekend when I had reinforcements to help me assess the situation. It seems this house has surprised me a few times already, so it was with some trepidation that I faced the carpet situation.

However, we all thought there were wood floors throughout. Did I mention my home is 91 years young? So it wouldn't be unheard of. We peeked under the carpet in the corners, but it was tough to see and in one spot it looked like ... linoleum. Huh? On the other side, it looked like hardwood. So my brother started in front of the front door and cut a 3-foot strip of carpet. Here's what we found...


Nice, right? It looks like at one point there was a half-wall or built-in something there because the hardwood goes up to it... all that black tar-like stuff appears to be glue. For the kick-ass, 1960s, speckled linoleum. I nearly cried. And because we cut the strip right down the middle, there was really no turning back (plus the carpet and pad were disgusting, so it had to be taken out and everything cleaned.)

My living room is this giant 14'x24' room and the linoleum covers over half of it. After we uncovered more, it appeared that at some point one of the previous owners tried to remove some linoleum and realized how tough it would be and gave up. It kills me that the beautiful floors are covered like that!



We worked really hard for hours to get everything cut, rolled up, and bundled for the trash. Then we pulled out the staples, which is really tough work. We washed the floors with a lovely citrus-scented cleaner, which actually did help get rid of the smell of dog pee. I contemplated getting carpet just for the half of the room with the linoleum, but in the end, just couldn't do it (namely, I'm not rich and can't have the wood half refinished AND have carpet installed). So in a few weeks, the lovely wood will be covered up again... as well as the ugly linoleum.

But perhaps we finally exorcised the ghost of Puppy Pees A Lot. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Oh, stay tuned for updates on the office wallpaper/paneling/plaster issue... that's another upcoming weekend project (that scares the bejeezus out of me).