Fun with carpet
We'll be putting in new carpet. (Downstairs is wood and vinyl-soon-to-be-tile, stairs and upper floor are carpet.) Original plan had been to replace carpet by the end of summer. But Valerie's extended family will be visiting from Long Island this coming week, so the timeline was accelerated.
Yesterday after work I began tearing out the old carpet. It's hot work, so I was wearing my bathing suit. Something I did not know is that the carpet on stairs is held to the treads by long staples. Lots and lots of long staples. After the first few "ow!"s and a futile attempt to avoid staples by handling the carpet gingerly, I gave up on the dream of an intact epidermis and went back to ripping and rolling. My forearms and legs and abdomen were soon covered with scores of superficial punctures and scratches that bled profusely (as superficial punctures and scratches are wont to do). When I'd completed the tear-and-roll I reclined on the lower steps for a few minutes as I contemplated how to get the rug out the front door without spreading rug dust all over the livingroom. May have let my eyes close a bit.
At which point our youngest daughter came home and found her father, covered in dirt and blood, sprawled at the base of the stairs.
She shrieked "Daddy!" I leaped and yelled "What?!" And we both pretty much got our adrenalin rush for the day.
A little later I called the carpet people about getting things installed by the weekend and discovered the carpet we had spent weeks selecting would take ten days to two weeks to arrive. Which means there will be no carpet at all on the floor while Valerie's cousins are here.
I'm considering painting the subfloor in festive colors, but more likely I'll just leave it for the cousins' sake. A week of rough plywood underfoot will pretty well confirm all their assumptions about the South.
Maybe I'll paint a crescent moon on the door of the storage shed just to add to the ambiance.
Yesterday after work I began tearing out the old carpet. It's hot work, so I was wearing my bathing suit. Something I did not know is that the carpet on stairs is held to the treads by long staples. Lots and lots of long staples. After the first few "ow!"s and a futile attempt to avoid staples by handling the carpet gingerly, I gave up on the dream of an intact epidermis and went back to ripping and rolling. My forearms and legs and abdomen were soon covered with scores of superficial punctures and scratches that bled profusely (as superficial punctures and scratches are wont to do). When I'd completed the tear-and-roll I reclined on the lower steps for a few minutes as I contemplated how to get the rug out the front door without spreading rug dust all over the livingroom. May have let my eyes close a bit.
At which point our youngest daughter came home and found her father, covered in dirt and blood, sprawled at the base of the stairs.
She shrieked "Daddy!" I leaped and yelled "What?!" And we both pretty much got our adrenalin rush for the day.
A little later I called the carpet people about getting things installed by the weekend and discovered the carpet we had spent weeks selecting would take ten days to two weeks to arrive. Which means there will be no carpet at all on the floor while Valerie's cousins are here.
I'm considering painting the subfloor in festive colors, but more likely I'll just leave it for the cousins' sake. A week of rough plywood underfoot will pretty well confirm all their assumptions about the South.
Maybe I'll paint a crescent moon on the door of the storage shed just to add to the ambiance.