No More Carpet

Well, we finally did it - took the old, dirty carpet out of our living room. We've been talking about it for a lllloooonnnnggg time - but were always waiting for the 'right' time. No time like the present ;) We are hoping to paint our living room (and the hall, bedrooms etc) - so while we wait for the quote, we started the preparations (no sense in getting a nice paint job with ugly carpet on the floor!). So Alvar and the kids went to work on Saturday, taking it all out - the kids had a blast....doesn't take much to entertain! They all had their "jobs" to do - Esther hammered down nails, Caleb took the under padding off the floor (piece by piece) and Anna vacuumed up the remnants of staples, nails and other stuff off the floor. They were all very helpful - and Alvar's pretty sure they helped to make the job quite a bit shorter in the end!

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Once all the carpet was up and the floor cleaned - it was pretty easy to see that the hardwood was not going to be useful anymore (if you need about a million nails - come on over - that's about how many have been used to nail the wood down - a real pity!!). So, now we wait till the laminate is on sale at Home Depot - then we finish off the floor (living room, hallway and our bedroom) - pretty soon we'll have a "grown-up" house with real paint (sorry, I don't consider pink paint in the living room a proper colour!!) and a nice floor too - we can't wait!!
One section at a time

The master "nail-hitter"

The master under padding destroyer

The master pony-player - oops...well, Anna did vacuum, I just didn't catch with the camera! The vacuuming didn't last too long , playing with toys is a little more fun I guess!

Yah, sure, they look all innocent on their own - but put a million of these nails together

and you have quite the army!

And the aftermath - not too bad - we find it completely changes the look in the living room - makes us look forward even more to getting the floor done 'right' and the walls painted!