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7/24/12

We can do it. We know we can. It's our house, dadblammit!

I have to rant today...I hope you don't mind.  You see, I dislike wall to wall carpeting.  I'm sorry if you love it.  That's okay.  I'm good with everyone having their own pet peeves.  But I have kids.  And I watch kids.  And all of those kids are always running around getting things dirty.  Yay!  That's what kids do...I know.  ;)  I like them to run around and have fun and not have to worry if they forget to wipe their feet or remove their shoes.  They're so busy they don't always remember all the little rules we adults ask them to follow. 

SO.  Why would we cover our floors with a wall to wall dirt magnet?  I just don't get it. Not very smart or practical when you need to clean.  I'd rip up all of the carpeting in our home right now and replace it with something like hardwoods if I could afford to.

But I can't.  That would be crazy. 

Who does that sorta thing?

Well, we do...dadblammit!  It's our house and if we just can't take the carpet anymore, well, we can rip it out and be done with it.  Starting with the stairs!  Even if we don't have the money for hardwoods! We're kinda crazy like that.  :) 
Here's what our staircase looked like after the nasty carpeting was ripped free:

No hardwoods under the carpet.  :(   Not even plywood...we weren't that lucky.  Just some funky chunky particle board type stuff.  My Honey calls it USB.  (He has a different word for everything, as he told us ladies this morning when we were trying to discuss how to deal with the huge gaps between the treads, risers and walls.  Apparently we don't speak the same language!?  It's a Mars and Venus thing.)
Do you see what else was under the carpet?  Carpet strips, staples and a whole lotta dust and grit.  YUCK.  IT WAS TIME FOR THE CARPET TO GO. 
 So the MARS GUYS ripped off the carpet strips and pulled up the staples.  Then I swept up the mess and vacuumed up a decade of dirt...

And started to paint!  I decided going from the top down would be the most practical.  Otherwise I'd be stuck upstairs while the paint dried.  The young Martian decided he wanted to hang upstairs and play his PlayStation when I mentioned we could use a bucket and rope to get snacks up to him.  Hehe...that left me downstairs alone for hours.  Shhhh...

 But I did remember to feed him from time to time.
 And I painted the stairs with blue-grey paint.  Semi-gloss.  Right over the chunky "USB" treads and risers!

After chatting with my friend, we determined that a wide blue stripe up the center would look really nice and tie in the blue from the living room.  I decided to wait on that since the little guy needed to make it downstairs for dinner at some point.


But here the stairs are in all their gappy, particle-boardy, blue-grey painted glory.

'Nothing a little caulk won't fix'...right HONEY???

That blue stripe's gonna look mighty fine on these!  LOL.

16 comments :

  1. Yea for no carpeting! I didn't put ANY in the house we are in now....and I'm glad I didn't!

    (I have 5 kids too)
    --Katie
    @ Creatively Living

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  2. Personally, I think you did the right thing! Carpet may feel really good on the feet, but it is so, so, dirty! The blue on the stairs looks so fresh and clean!

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  3. Here's an alternative to carpet....till you can afford wood. Maybe this would allow you to get rid of all your carpet. I would try this, if I didn't already have wood.

    http://www.anoregoncottage.com/2010/08/video-diy-alternative-to-wood-floors.html

    I think it is a great idea!! You can also find different tutorials for this treatment on Youtube.

    I hate carpet and am glad you took the plunge...the steps look great!!

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  4. Oh Sherry....you are my hero! Every day I look at this carpet and say that the particle board would be better and I'm so tempted to do what you did on your stairs to my whole living room floor! I hate carpet. Mine is off-white berber and i can't stand it! I'm going to be watching your next step! (no pun intended!)

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  5. Love the blue that you chose, and yes, caulk will help fix those gaps!

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  6. YESS, I'm starting to HATE carpet, Half of my house is hardwood and i wish we had put it in all over the house when we did our remodel, especially when the basement flooded the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th times! I'm not quite sure what to do now that the house is for sale, however we may not move now, soooo, having said all of that, if that is going to be our decision i'm riping up the carpet in the basement family room and painting that stinkin' concrete if it kills me and it probably will but i don't care, it will be worth it!!!

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  7. Loking GOOD!!! Im so not jazzed about having carpet on my stairs either,love your blog love your work!

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  8. You are so brave. I am desperate to rip out my own carpet....I may just have to follow your example.

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  9. Good for you! Looking great! Thanks for sharing at DIYbyDesign.

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  10. Good for you - can't wait to see the blue stripe. Great idea about the bucket too, my children congregate around me in a staring circle whenever I paint. It's eerie and a little annoying.

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  11. You go girl! Tear it out.. "USB" (OSB.. oriented strand board) is still better than someone else's foot dirt! I think a dark stripe down the middle will look great. Even buying some cheap 40c/linear foot quarter round to trim the gap at the sides will make it look like a whole new staircase!

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  12. Now that's the attitude I love - do what you love! We tore carpet out of bathrooms (um, yea - disgusting) and I painted right over the subfloor. It's been a beautiful temporary solution! Your stairs are looking great!

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  13. I'm doing this to my disgusting particle board stairs now.

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  14. I'm doing this to my disgusting particle board stairs now.

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  15. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who ripped out her carpet and painted the particle board stairs! Mine is black with white risers. It does take a long time to dry doesn't it? I put two coats of oil based Kilz on first. I had my dog n my upstairs bedroom while I ran to lowes for a new paintbrush. When I got home home she had gotten out somehow n ran down over the black paint tracking it on the carpet downstairs.... So I had to clean it up luckily she's just a little dog.

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