Previously, I covered the stripping of the carpet, padding, and a million staples. Let's move on to the walls since that was the next big project. Once the carpet was out, we had to clean the walls off. That meant clearing any hooks off the wall, removing any hardware on the wall, and essentially gutting everything down to the drywall.
Sounds like small stuff but like the carpet, the project grew with every passing second. Take a closet for example. We had already removed the bi-fold doors to remove the carpet. But now it was time to remove the shelves. And the brackets. And that odd cable that ran from the attic to the basement. You get the idea. The only brackets we left up were the ones in the master closet (we ended up taking them down anyway later).
We're quickly learning that we hate bi-fold doors.
Other hardware we removed included the doors, the hinges, strike plates, outlet covers, and a few other things I've forgotten. You never realize all the little things that are there until you go to remove them and suddenly you're left holding the bag with a ton of stuff to keep track of. Fortunately we knew in advance that we wanted to replace the outlet and light switch covers so we just bagged those and donated them. But we also had window blinds, closet hardware, and more.
You get the idea. Lots of stuff to take off the wall. Once that was all done, we then had to clean the walls. Just some simple dish soap and hot water. We'd attack a room with a couple of mops and do the ceilings first, then the walls. We quickly learned that one room was shut off from the world but also appeared to have the most dirt on the walls. Haven't figured that on out yet but it almost looked like somebody smoked in just that room (even though it didn't smell like that).
Probably should have mentioned that before we washed the walls, we vacuumed the floors. No sense washing the walls only to spray dust and dirt all over them again. So the floors got a good vacuum which in turn gave us a great opportunity to find staples that we missed. We did pretty good and only found a few that were missed.
During this time we also had to deal with other distractions. Like chimney swifts in the fireplace, DirecTV installing a new dish and line to the house, getting new locks for the doors, and installing a new mailbox. I drafted the kids to help with the mailbox because it was a fairly small job and they were getting bored. I mean, it's a rough a life swimming half the day and playing the other half.
My helpers for the new mailbox.
Speaking of door locks, the old ones were a pain in the ass to remove. They were the old school Schlages and had these small covers over the allen screws/bolts that you needed to get to in order to remove the locks. Well, after using a hammer, prybar, drill, and lots of muscle, we were able to remove the old locks. Only to find that we needed to drill new holes so the new locks would fit. Which meant more drilling and more muscles.
Those damn metal covers in the top lock were a bitch to remove. Totally trashed the old lock beyond repair. We didn't install them in the new locks.
Sounds like small stuff but like the carpet, the project grew with every passing second. Take a closet for example. We had already removed the bi-fold doors to remove the carpet. But now it was time to remove the shelves. And the brackets. And that odd cable that ran from the attic to the basement. You get the idea. The only brackets we left up were the ones in the master closet (we ended up taking them down anyway later).
We're quickly learning that we hate bi-fold doors.
Other hardware we removed included the doors, the hinges, strike plates, outlet covers, and a few other things I've forgotten. You never realize all the little things that are there until you go to remove them and suddenly you're left holding the bag with a ton of stuff to keep track of. Fortunately we knew in advance that we wanted to replace the outlet and light switch covers so we just bagged those and donated them. But we also had window blinds, closet hardware, and more.
You get the idea. Lots of stuff to take off the wall. Once that was all done, we then had to clean the walls. Just some simple dish soap and hot water. We'd attack a room with a couple of mops and do the ceilings first, then the walls. We quickly learned that one room was shut off from the world but also appeared to have the most dirt on the walls. Haven't figured that on out yet but it almost looked like somebody smoked in just that room (even though it didn't smell like that).
Probably should have mentioned that before we washed the walls, we vacuumed the floors. No sense washing the walls only to spray dust and dirt all over them again. So the floors got a good vacuum which in turn gave us a great opportunity to find staples that we missed. We did pretty good and only found a few that were missed.
During this time we also had to deal with other distractions. Like chimney swifts in the fireplace, DirecTV installing a new dish and line to the house, getting new locks for the doors, and installing a new mailbox. I drafted the kids to help with the mailbox because it was a fairly small job and they were getting bored. I mean, it's a rough a life swimming half the day and playing the other half.
My helpers for the new mailbox.
Speaking of door locks, the old ones were a pain in the ass to remove. They were the old school Schlages and had these small covers over the allen screws/bolts that you needed to get to in order to remove the locks. Well, after using a hammer, prybar, drill, and lots of muscle, we were able to remove the old locks. Only to find that we needed to drill new holes so the new locks would fit. Which meant more drilling and more muscles.
Those damn metal covers in the top lock were a bitch to remove. Totally trashed the old lock beyond repair. We didn't install them in the new locks.
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