Dept. of the Interior, Floor-istry Divison

If defenestration means throwing stuff out a window, what do you call it when you pull up an entire floor? De-floor-estation?

This week we got a bug in our bonnets and finally removed the last remnants (hah! See what I did there?) of carpeting in the house. The entire third floor had wall-to-wall carpet of indeterminate vintage. Probably from the 1960s; possibly as new as the 1980s. Definitely not staying, either way.

We'd pulled up the carpet in Kathy's upstairs office four years ago almost to the day, and found a fairly ratty wooden subfloor underneath. It had paint splatters, cuts, gouges, and various indignities that made it not worth trying to resurface. We'd left the carpet in Jim's office, the guest room, and the adjoining hallways... until now. They also had paint-splattered subfloor underneath, often with chunks cut out and patched. Clearly, the previous owners had given up on this flooring. They'd cleaned paint rollers, dripped paint, and spray-painted furniture right on the floor. This area was never meant to be exposed.

Our plan is to resurface the entire third floor with hardwood, like the 1st and 2nd floors already have. But to do that, we've got to pull up all the carpeting. Piece of cake. The demolition is always the easy and fun part.

Pulling up carpet is sort of like moving: You have to pack up all of your belongings and put them somewhere else. There's no magician's trick of yanking the carpet out from under the table, so we played musical chairs with all the beds, desks, file cabinets, forgotten boxes, and whatnot. First, you shove everything to the left, then tear up half of the carpet, then shove everything to the right and pull up the other half. A good sharp knife allows you to rip the carpet down the middle and roll it up in halves, like a gigantic fuzzy burrito.

Old carpets aren't particularly sanitary, either. Kathy and I both got new respirator masks and wore them the whole time. They're hot and uncomfortable, but the alternative was... ick.

Under the carpet, of course, is the padding. In some ways, it's more trouble to remove than the carpet because it doesn't cut neatly. Instead, it tears into irregular pieces, so you have to chase around the room and get all the bits from everywhere. We went through an entire roll of masking tape just binding this stuff together. There's a trip to the dump in our future!

Then comes the tedious job of removing all the nails, staples, and tack strips. Tack strips are vicious, nasty things with hundreds of sharp nails pointing straight up, ready to catch your fingers, clothes, and tools. They're designed specifically to be painful. (They may also have some incidental use as carpet fasteners; I wouldn't know.) We got to make a lap around each room prying up the tack strips and trying to toss them into a garbage can without hemorrhaging.

Next come the staples. Lots and lots of staples. The padding is stapled down -- quite thoroughly -- all over each room. That's why the old padding shreds and rips when you pull it up. It's held down with several hundred staples (no exaggeration). But before we can put down hardwood, we have to remove all the staples and make the subfloor smooth.

The bad news is, speckled paint splatter makes almost perfect camouflage. You can't see half the staples. You have to feel for them, then pry them up with a screwdriver or pull 'em out with pliers. So you run your hand over the floor, go "ouch!," pull out the offending staple, and repeat.

The good news is... well, there is no good news. It's just plain tedious work, down on your hands and knees pulling out hundreds and hundreds of perfectly camouflaged staples. At least Cinderella got a clean floor when she was done. We just have a paint-splattered floor that looks exactly as it did when we started. But with fewer hazards for bare feet. Stay in school, kids, and get a nice quiet office job somewhere. Otherwise, you may wind up like us.