Carpets no more

In July, we celebrated our anniversary. Initially, we were planning to take a long weekend trip somewhere, but ultimately decided that new floors would be an even better present to ourselves.

In case you don't know, our house was completely carpeted, save for one closet and the bathrooms, when we bought it. Yes, even the kitchen was carpeted. Thanks to the one closet that was uncarpeted, we were fairly certain hardwood floors were just waiting beneath all that carpet. Refinishing the existing hardwoods worked for everyplace but the kitchen and sunroom. Since we didn't know what was under there, and didn't have the resources to address it if it was damaged or bare subfloor, we left those areas carpeted.

Walking through Lowes one day, we decided to scrap the long weekend-away plans for our anniversary (at that point, it was still months away), and get new floors in the bathroom, kitchen, and sunroom. (linoleum with a few rips, carpet, and carpet, respectively)

By the end of it, we had settled on a darker tile for the bathroom, which will work nicely with the redesign we have in mind; a slate-looking tile for the kitchen, and cork for the sunroom. (seeing other people putting cork in their kitchen sometimes gives me pangs of regret. I thought about it! But was talked out of it. I now live in fear of the day we drop of glass or plate on our pretty tile floor!)

There isn't much frugal to say about the floors themselves. Even though the tile will be freezing in the winter, I'm glad to be rid of the carpet. No carpet means that the vacuum isn't necessary, and that any Minnie-dog accidents can be cleaned up with a paper towel or rag. The steam cleaner may be retired. I also think that the non-carpet will benefit us when we do eventually sell this house. Cause the floors are so pretty!

While we may have been able to install the cork ourselves (it is a floating floor deal), since we were already having the installers come out to do the tile, we opted to let them do what they are paid to do! My husband did do a tiny bit of vertical tile work in the shower before we officially moved in. Learned there that tile layers get paid for a reason. Especially when it is vertical tile!

What we did do to save a bit of money was prep the areas, so all the installers had to do was come in (move the toilet) and lay the floors. This involved ripping up the carpet and carpet pads, removing carpet staples and tack board, removing any quarter round or base boards we wanted gone, and of course, moving furniture and appliances.

Everything was shoved into the dining room. It was an interesting sight.

We did run into a stumbling block, though. Turns out that our kitchen carpet had been laid during a small window of time when "they" used a rubber backing to essentially glue the carpet to the floor. That rubber backing was not fun. We didn't take it up, but the installers said it needed to come up. That stuff did not want to leave the floor! Our installers were awesome, though. They assessed the job, and were able to knock it out pretty quickly, and for less than we were willing to pay not to have to do it!

The lack of access to our kitchen for a few days made the endeavor more expensive than we had initially anticipated, but the floors are awesome. Overall, we are very happy with the new floors. Especially with the fact that they are not wall-to-wall carpeting.

As you may recall, we did some work on the floors of our house before moving in. This means we have beautiful hardwood floors, perfect for the odd dance or two and sliding around in your socks. It also means that the vacuum is almost worthless on it (plus, using electricity when it doesn't need to be used!).

Initially, the space looked huge, then furniture was moved in, and it looked less huge. Then I realized that I had to actually sweep the floors. The space grew exponentially at that point. First few times, I just swept with a broom, and it seemed to do a good enough job.

But, you see, we adopted a dog back a while back. And she sheds. Add that to my hair, and the fact that we do most of our living in the living/dining rooms, and it makes for some dusty floors! Floors for which a simple sweeping does not suffice.

I pondered my problem for a bit, and remembered my mom dusting with old cloth diapers. Thought the same principle would apply - a soft cloth on wood. Hmm... don't have any cloth diapers, and running out to buy them as dust clothes seems to defeat the purpose.

Know what I do have, though? A plethora of tshirts. Some that are over 10 years old. Some that are more like 15-20+ years old. A number of these have been worn considerably, and are deliciously soft and comfortable as a result. Some are down right thin, and relegated to "around the house" wear only. Also known as "perfect as a dust rag."

I selected one of the softest, most worn old tshirt, put it on the end of dust-pusher-broom thing (think Swiffer broom, but it isn't), and dusted my floors. It worked well. Would have worked better if I hadn't let the dog's hair build up so much. (Winter's coming! Why is she shedding!?) Finished off my sweeping the pile into a dustpan.

My floors were beautiful. Until I let the dog back in. Sigh, at least she's adorable.

The main reason I've been so quiet lately

Ok, I think I'm ready to tell you now. One reason I've been so quiet is that we've been busy. Because we've just moved. Into a house. That we are buying.

Buying a house may not be the most frugal thing that we have ever done. There are pros and cons to owning and to renting. (One pro to renting is that generally, they clean between tenants.) For us, owning is something that we wanted to do, and it gives us more freedom in our lives. Freedom to do things like garden, have a dog, and hang a picture.

We had some time in the house and apartment overlap, so we used it to work on the house.

Here’s what we did:

-         Ripped up carpet in the bedrooms, hallway, and the living and dining rooms

-         Completely refinished two of the bedrooms (I covered the vents! Husband did most of the heavy lifting here)

-         Removed more wallpaper and wallpaper borders then I care to remember

-         Painted four rooms (with tremendous help from my dad)

-         Removed some damaged drywall in the bathroom and replaced it with cement board and tile.

-         Hired an electrician to upgrade the electrical box, and fix a few things.

Not cheap, but could have been worse. And, of course, there is more to be done, but we are very happy with our house, and what has been done so far.

My husband’s job has him interacting with people all day long, and it proved to be very helpful in finding an electrician, and discovering what we want to go ahead and try to do ourselves. Like the floors.

Over the past month, we have spent more time in home improvement stores than I had in my previous 26 years of life. We got to know the rough tools and such, and were considering redoing the floors ourselves, fully acknowledging the fact that I didn’t think I could handle the floor sander. In preparation, my husband watched the Ask This Old House video several times, but we were still on the fence.

At work one day, he helps a professional floor restorer, and gets a rough, unofficial estimate to refinish all our floors. When he told me, my eyes about bugged out, a la cartoons. Off to the home improvement store we went, our decision made! Since I’m a bit paranoid about putting too much stuff online (Sound contradictory? Yes, but I never claimed to always make sense.), I won’t go into exact dollar amounts, but after renting the floor sander for two days, and buying the other necessary products, we spent less than a tenth of what the professional would have charged us. We aren’t finished yet, though considering the costs, doing it ourselves may take time (which we have), but will save us a ton of money (which don’t have).

All this being said, my husband does have some experience with this sort of thing. Not the floors, specifically, but in general. I recognize that not everyone can do something like this, but we are lucky enough that we can.

Since this is getting a little long, I’ll end with a link to a picture of our shiny bedroom floors, pre-furniture. (Also, mid-painting.)

What home improvement projects have you tackled yourself to save money?