How To Repair Hardwood Floors After Removing Carpet

Before unpacking a single box in our house, nigh of the carpet had to go. My husband, Eric, is allergic to things like dust, copse and 50-year-erstwhile mustard colored carpeting.

While virtually of the business firm was a mid-century modern fourth dimension capsule that we fell in honey with at first sight, there were just a few '70s and '80s add-ons whose days were numbered.

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Bye, Carpet

The carpet was nearly wall-to-wall on both levels of the house, including some that had found its way into the main bath. (Why was bathroom carpeting always a thing?) Eric and I gleefully pulled it up and piled information technology in the breezeway, the first step in restoring the house to its former 1960s glory.

We knew in that location were hardwoods buried under rug in the primary three bedrooms and hall, but nosotros didn't know what condition they would be in. It turns out they were beautiful rich oak in virtually perfect condition.

When the previous possessor's son and daughter stopped by a few weeks later to bring united states some sometime photos and blueprints of the house, they told us their dad had put the carpets in immediately. After painstakingly cutting, sanding and polishing this wood floor, he and then covered information technology upwardly with carpeting.

What?! Sounds crazy to me, but I gave him a pass because when he did this it was the late '60s, and with the '70s around the corner I guess he knew carpet was the adjacent big thing (even bath carpeting). Information technology worked out for Eric and me because the floor was pristine when we uncovered information technology almost 50 years after.

And by pristine, of form I mean partially caked in dried out carpeting padding and brimming with staples. Merely other than that, pristine. Just waiting for some love.

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Restoring Our Hardwoods

We got to work cleaning up the flooring. This involved ripping out staples, prying up carpet tack strips and scraping off the rug padding where it was stuck to the floor. This was work of the neck and back breaking variety. Thankfully we had help from Eric's blood brother, Andy.

Eric and Andy worked inch-by-inch, hunched over to remove what seemed similar an unreasonably excessive number of staples. This was our outset indication that the previous owner and builder of the home was very meticulous—a great characteristic in the quality of his workmanship, but not and then fun when you're tasked with removing hundreds of rug staples. He sure didn't desire the carpet going anywhere.

Once we got the staples out we swept and mopped, and then we restored the flooring with Rejuvenate. If y'all have big boom holes in your hardwoods, y'all might need to fill up them in with some woods putty, just in our instance the Rejuvenate filled in the tiny staple holes just fine. These hardwoods were hiding nether carpet for virtually 50 years. We plant a few sneaky staples subsequently the fact, but you become the idea.

Eric removes sneaky staples.

And Proficient Riddance, Stained Glass Lite

Forth with the carpeting, this stained glass light was rapidly escorted from the bounds. Eric disconnected and removed it before anyone had a chance for a vertical faceplant. Nothing against dark-brown and goose egg against glass, just I don't want to see them together in this item house. Mayhap over a round of pancakes and bacon at a diner? Only not hither, non today. Sorry, light.

Offending stained glass calorie-free

Nosotros also took down the valance and drapes you tin see behind the low-cal. Technically they were era advisable, but they were dominating the whole south wall of windows and blocking the view. With a handy electrical drill, they were gone. Here's the upshot of tearing old carpeting, drapes and stained glass out of the house. Solar day one of abode ownership complete.

How to Remove Carpet and Restore Hardwoods:

1. Remove baseboards with a small pry bar (carefully if you desire to keep them, or recklessly if yous're getting rid of them and want to take a little fun).
2. Pull up the carpet and carpet padding with gusto and toss it all out the door, cutting information technology into pieces equally needed to remove it without scratching the floor.
3. Pry up the carpeting tack strips (the wood strips along the edges that the carpet was nailed to).
4. Use a staple remover and/or pry bar to remove the staples…then many staples.
5. Use a plastic putty knife to gently remove whatever onetime padding stuck to the floor.
6. Sweep up the excess mess.
7. Give the floor a thorough Pine-Sol mopping.
8. Shine upwards the flooring with Rejuvenate and a microfiber material or mop.
9. Use a nail gun to reattach the baseboards.

Restoring Hardwood Floors

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Source: https://www.hammerandaheadband.com/first-things-first-goodbye-carpet-and-stained-glass-light/

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