Isthmus House reveals a good surprise!

When I started writing this post, I had a few moments of writer's block. I realllllly want to write about the awesome new bathroom and how it's done and perfect and was all worth it. But that wouldn't be true solely because the bathroom isn't quite done yet. Hopefully I'll be able to write about it next week!

In recent posts, I've been talking about getting things ready for our new Roommate coming in this week. In preparation for her arrival, I pulled the carpet out of her room. Very attractive, no?

 

 

I started off by buying a new Bagster. If you've ever done a restoration (or renovation, for that matter) project, you know how much debris can pile up even when you try to save and reuse everything. Bagsters are about $30 at Home Depot (I haven't found anywhere you can buy them) and under $100 to get them picked up in my area - sometimes you can even save a few bucks by searching for and adding a promo code when you schedule pickup.

 

Once I had my Bagster set up in my front yard (I'm sure my neighbors love that), I got started pulling the quarter round from around the room. Most of it pulled up by hand - I only needed my pry bar for one small piece by the closet. I was hoping to be able to save and reuse pieces but it split when I pulled it up so it had to go into the Bagster.

 

I had checked the edges of the floor to make sure they were in decent shape before I pulled everything out and they looked fine from that vantage point. If you've been reading the other posts, this is usually followed by a groan, thinking that I'm about to say "but..."

 

No "but" here!

 

I used a carpet cutter, which is stronger and sharper than your average utility knife, to cut the carpet into strips. From there, you can roll it up and duct tape it so it's much more manageable. I wish you luck trying to pull 100 square feet of carpet out in one fell swoop!

 

It took me a grand total of about 20 minutes to cut the carpet, roll it up and tape it. Add another 5 minutes for getting it all into the Bagster and you're looking at a pretty great quick and easy update for Isthmus House.

 

If you've ever pulled carpet up, you know that it's often tacked or even glued to the floor - which would have been heartbreaking with this old hardwood. Miraculously, there wasn't even a single tack or bead of glue on any of this carpet - it had been held down entirely by the quarter round trim and had only a squishy, decent quality carpet pad under it.

 

There can be good surprises at Isthmus House and this is one of them! Check out these floors!

 

 



 

 The next great thing I'm thinking? The downstairs bathroom! Get excited; I certainly am!