You know that saying about peeling an onion and finding its layers?
Well, I discovered this weekend that the same can sometimes be said about floor coverings.
When Dana and I bought our house about five years ago, we knew the carpet in the office would have to be replaced sooner or later. Unfortunately, unforeseeable circumstances turned it into later (regardless of how much iced tea was spilled on it. A-hem.) But in the time we waited for new floor coverings for the office, we learned a couple of things about the guy who had worked on the house before we came along.
1. He didn't know diddly squat about drywall. (The texture on the upstairs walls was a little . . . shall we say aggressive. Actually, before we remodeled, you couldn't lean against the wall without receiving puncture wounds.)
2. Work ethic wasn't really a strong point in this particular individual. (He cut a lot of corners.)
So, we probably shouldn't have been surprised when we started working on the office floor yesterday.
At about noon, Dana and I began removing furniture from the office. The plan was to clear a path for the carpet guy to come in to lay the carpet on Monday evening.
But as we peeled back the carpet, Dana and I began to realize we probably weren't going to need a carpet . . . much less someone to lay it.
Beneath the pad, we discovered a beautiful oak floor.
Well, okay, it was more like a diamond in the rough because the gentleman I mentioned before (Yeah, Mr. Poor Work Ethic) had redone the drywall in this room without throwing a drop cloth over the floor; giant splotches of white mud gloobers covered the floor.
I'm still asking, "WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?"
On the bright side, living with a professional drywaller for 13 years has diminished my fear of drywall mud. On clothes, it comes out in the washing machine with litle trouble. On floors, it cleans up with a little elbow grease, a full gallon of vinegar, three cups of Murphy's oil soap, eight gallons of water and an entire bottle of Minwax wood cleaner for floors. (But not all at the same time.)
It was dirty. It was muddy.
But after four scrubbings with a mop and bucket and two scrubbings on my hands and knees with the bottle of Minwax, we finally won the battle.
By 10 p.m., my office was back in ship-shape.
What do you think?
5 comments:
Oh, I LOVE hardwood floors and those are just gorgeous! What a nice surprise it must have been to find that under there!
I love it! I've heard so many times that people have found awesome floors beneath carpet. Thanks for the pictures, they are GREAT!
Kat~I can't believe what you found the floor is gorgeous. Shows what happens when you peel the layers of the onion, eh? ;)
Holy nice! Great floor! And I'm lol-ing about the puncture wounds you received from the wall. That's just too funny!
Wow! That's my own fantasy of what should lie beneath all carpets just waiting to be discovered by the unsuspecting homeowner. It looks like it's in pretty good shape.
Unfortunately, there aren't any secret wood floors in this five-year-old neighborhood we live in. That's one of the great perks of older houses. I'd prefer to live in an older house, but they're usually more expensive here.
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