no wonder we've been having allergy issues!!

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Tried to vacuum the living room floor today after clearing the remaining boxes out.  But the vacuum was kicking up more dust than it was sucking up, and it was just gross.  We were planning on replacing the carpet with wood as soon as we can afford it, but were trying to just live with it for a little while.  Well, I went over in the corner and pulled up a section of carpet and padding and underneath there is seriously at least an eighth if not a quarter inch of dust and dirt underneath this nasty stuff!!  Just after that much, I can't breathe through my nose.  The carpet must go... maybe even today, if I can just find a box knife or some sort of utility knife so I can cut it into strips.  I hope to have the living room free of carpet by the time DH gets home from work, but I may have to leave it under the heavy furniture until he gets here.  I think I can live with the slab easier than this 20YO carpet.

[glenn kangiser]

I think it was Mike Oehler who said man used to live on dirt floors then he went to carpet and was back to dirt floors.  We have some dirt floors.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

True dirt floors don't bother me because you can sweep them.  This kind of dirt isn't even real dirt, IMO.  It is broken down particles of carpet padding and who knows what!!! I ripped the carpet out of the living room yesterday, except under the entertainment center, which was too heavy to move by myself, but I think I've figured out a way to do it today.  Next the hall and then the bedrooms.  I couldn't breathe all night last night after stirring up so much dust.  I pulled up the tack strips around the walls, but the nails that were holding them are still in the floor.  I pulled a few up and it chipped the slab, so I'm not sure if I should do that or if I should cut them off flush with the floor?    Any thoughts?  I have always hated carpet, and we've ripped it out of every place we've lived, but this one is by far the worst.  I swept up a pile of dirt and crud under the first one third of the living room yesterday that weighed over 15 lbs!  Isn't that nuts?

[muldoon]

I pulled up the tack strips around the walls, but the nails that were holding them are still in the floor.  I pulled a few up and it chipped the slab, so I'm not sure if I should do that or if I should cut them off flush with the floor?    Any thoughts? 

I would think you need to pull them with a flat prybar .. something like the wonderbar.  If the slab chips a bit just patch it back up later with some thinset or mortar or some of that vinyl concrete patch stuff they sell at the big orange box.  no biggie. 

15 pounds of dirt from 1/3rd of one room?  wow.  are you getting pictures of this? 

[glenn kangiser]

The concrete nails are very hard so could be ground off flush with a hand angle grinder, or pull and patch as muldoon stated.

[Windpower]

what a miserable job pulling carpet is

you must be a ball of energy to get all that done

I have some linolium to pull up 

don't forget the safety glasses pulling those nails -- like eye did -- but lucked out

[Sassy]

You should be wearing a respirator mask or at least something that will filter that crud out before your breathe it all down!  We took some of our carpet out of the cabin - hung it up - I hosed it down several times, scrubbed them with laundry soap & hosed them down some more.  We only have dirt - real dirt under  under the carpet.  There's indoor-outdoor under the wool carpets (Persian) so they're not directly on the dirt.  And we've had some drainage issues on the one side so the floor gets damp & then the carpets get damp - you can't walk on damp dirt floors, need something to cover them up     One of these days, we'll get the great room/ largest section of the cabin floor in & then we can move the one bed out of here & redo the floor & put a sump in & some French drains outside.  When we built this initially, we didn't know the gophers would be so aggresive 

[StinkerBell]

My suggestion would start with a match and some kerosene, but seeing that others gave you some good suggestions you are better off then with mine.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

You should be wearing a respirator mask or at least something that will filter that crud out before your breathe it all down!  We took some of our carpet out of the cabin - hung it up - I hosed it down several times, scrubbed them with laundry soap & hosed them down some more.  We only have dirt - real dirt under  under the carpet.  There's indoor-outdoor under the wool carpets (Persian) so they're not directly on the dirt.  And we've had some drainage issues on the one side so the floor gets damp & then the carpets get damp - you can't walk on damp dirt floors, need something to cover them up     One of these days, we'll get the great room/ largest section of the cabin floor in & then we can move the one bed out of here & redo the floor & put a sump in & some French drains outside.  When we built this initially, we didn't know the gophers would be so aggresive 

Does a bandanna tied over my face count??  I can't find any of our stuff like tools and respirators.  I did luck out and find a box knife and a claw hammer, though.  I am sick as a dog today from doing the work yesterday, but am still planning on getting the rest of it out ASAP.  Hopefully DH will help me some this weekend since we're supposed to have two really cold yucky days in a row starting tomorrow.  I took a "before" pic, but perhaps I should take some "work in progress" pics too?  I made the kids play outside when I was ripping and tearing yesterday, and then when the baby woke up, I had them entertain her in the office, away from the dust and stuff I was stirring up.  We were hoping to do real wood this time, but we may go with laminate as a cost issue, or we may just live with the slab for a while.  Did I mention that I found three scorpions among other things under the carpet?

[Sassy]

The bandanna will help    But I'm one for giving advice & not following it    At our place in the valley, we have a little shed out back from our bedroom - we'd enclosed the yard area for our hot tub & the hydroponics DH had set up out there.  Anyway, the shed was used for making ceramics & pottery - there was a kiln, lots of greenware etc.  It hadn't been in use for years, I gather, since when I moved in, there was so much junk in there you couldn't even walk inside.  I cleaned it all out - the rats & mice had been using it for a home, so had the spiders & whatever else that liked it.  Of course, I didn't wear a mask cleaning out all the rat & mice droppings - coulda gotten hantavirus (I think MtnDon got that & almost died from it).  I also cleaned out the big shop on a regular basis as no one else seemed to want to do the job - that was another place with tons of junk, rat & mice droppings, dirt, spider webs etc.  But thank goodness, I never got sick from it.

Yes, you should take some "in progress" pictures!  What a major job, tearing out carpet...  especially someone elses that's been there for 20 yrs. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

At least this time I'm not doing floors while I'm five or six months pregnant!     I haven't accomplished much today but ordering chickens and price shopping for flooring.  And of course homeschool.  Need to finish ripping out the hall carpet but just haven't had it in me.

[ScottA]

HG you're nuts. But I get where you're comming from, I hate carpet too. But if I went to work and my wife tore out all the carpeting while I was gone I think I'd flip. 

[StinkerBell]

ScottA, if something as liitle as that would make you flip, good thing I am not your wife you be dead by now.

[Sassy]

 

[ScottA]

Stink that's probly why we never met. He moves in mysterious ways.   

[NetHog]

ScottA, if something as liitle as that would make you flip, good thing I am not your wife you be dead by now.

I can testify...
My sister and bro-in-law were visiting from England. Stink had them rip out the kitchen while I was at work.

[StinkerBell]

Umm, I did the work, they helped out just a little. Bro-in-law was terrified that you would get mad.

[peternap]

If you got that goat, bring him inside for a few hours. Might take a little longer to eat the nails.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

What a great idea Peter!  And the guineas could keep the goat company!  

My husband takes it all in stride... he's thankfully very laid-back about my ripping and tearing on the house.  I usually have to instigate stuff or it'd never get started.  He's always glad I did, once we get on in, but I admit last night he did sulk around for a little while because we went to buy new flooring and they didn't have it in stock, so we're going to have to go back today in the thunder-blizzard to pick it up. 
We got real wood.     It'll look really nice, I think. 

In our first house, I ripped out all the carpet the day we bought it, and we lived without new flooring for about three years!  He wasn't thrilled, especially about the downstairs, which was really cold in winter, and more so without the carpet.  But, it meant that we worked like crazy to get it done.  I think the only home repair that he ever flipped about was when I painted the wainscoating in our first house.  It was really dark in the kitchen, and the wainscoating was almost black panelling, so I found a partial bucket of yellowish paint and painted it, but the only problem was that I ran out before I got all the way around!  (Not only didn't finish all the wainscoating, but ran out halfway across a wall, and halfway across a strip of the panelling.  We lived with it like that because we were too poor at the time to buy a bucket of paint to finish it.  Right before we sold the house, I made a trip and finished that wainscoating finally.)

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Well, we didn't get the flooring and ended up cancelling the order because they weren't going to get it until much later.  He told us when we were looking that he had it in stock, but then turned around when he was ringing it up and told us we'd have to come back today to get it.  Then he calls me up today at noon and they're not getting it in until sometime next week.  I cancelled the order.  We went and bought paint instead.  We'll live with the concrete floors for now.