Floors, as written from the airport floor

The sewing room (aka the small bedroom upstairs) is getting closer and closer to done.

My most recent project? Pulling out the carpet!

Normally, I wouldn’t pull the carpets before I finished the construction in the room – which isn't done yet due in large part to contractor scheduling difficulties. Considering it isn't complete yet, you might be wondering why I’d pull up carpets that were also acting as a drop cloth for my wall ministrations…

We got the ducts cleaned!

It didn’t take long at all (maybe 45 minutes) and even though I think it’s a little on the expensive side considering how little time it takes, I’m definitely glad I did it!

Isthmus House wasn’t originally heated as it is now, it had coal, complete with a coal room (don’t worry, you’ll hear more about the coal room later). The ducts were added after the fact and are in funny places like inside an added archway between the living room and dining room and inside the upstairs shower.

See? Sadly, I really wasn't kidding about the vent in the shower.

 It also looks like they might not have been cleaned since they were originally installed.

From the grate we found under the floors in the upstairs hallway, to the one that’s shared between the upstairs kitchen/eventual master bedroom and The Other Roommate’s bedroom/kid’s-room-to-be, the ducts were dirty. We found some old kids building blocks, old construction scraps, a plastic tile of the letter O, and a really cool hologram - any guesses what era it's from?

It reads, "JET PROPELLED MISSILE DESTROYER: This pilotless jet propelled missile has a nuclear warhead and is radar controlled. It can track down and destroy another missile traveling at very high speed."

There was one return almost directly over the furnace that took almost 20 minutes alone to clean. There are only two in the entire house - these returns feed air to the furnace for it to heat and push back out to the rest of the house. The filter the crew used had to be cleaned three times - more than the rest of Isthmus House combined - before the one downstairs return (and only about six feet of ducting) was actually clean.  

Pretty, no? It makes me glad I change the furnace filters regularly.

This all leads up to why the carpet in the sewing room had to go.

Carpet is dirty. It holds dirt and grime and germs and it’s generally pretty gross. Consider that these carpets definitely hadn’t had much cleaning since their installation and that they were old and you can see why I’d want to get rid of them before cleaning out the dust and dirt from the house’s ventilation.

So, before the cleaners came, I got to work ripping up the carpets.

If you remember the sneak peek from our post about the sewing room walls, I had some pretty good reason to think the floors were in pretty good shape upstairs. I didn't think I’d get as lucky as I did with The Other Roommate’s bedroom floors, but it doesn't hurt to hope!

Cutting it with a utility knife because I couldn't find my carpet cutter (my workshop is currently a bit of a disaster), it took a little longer but in a smaller room, that wasn't a big deal.

Once it was in strips, I rolled them up and taped them up for easy disposal.  

After getting them pulled up, even I was a little surprised by just how much dirt was under them (that’s all the tan).

Once it was vacuumed up though, the floors look pretty! They’re a little torn up because there was no carpet pad under the carpet to protect them from the carpet binding (the scratchy backing) but they’ll look beautiful once they’re refinished.

The funny thing? The duct cleaners missed one vent – the one in the sewing room – but it’s clean now.

So, for those who want to know what’s coming up next with the sewing room, we’re getting a door! Once that’s done, I’ll be able to finish skim coating the last wall so I can be done with the room and eventually even paint. I guess with the carpet gone I’ll need a new drop cloth… but I think it’s worth it.

*If you're wondering about the name of this post. I'm literally posting as I sit on the floor of the Denver airport. Can't wait to see Isthmus House tonight!