Soft, Fluffy Carpet

Ahhhh! New carpet!

Before we could put our house on the market, we had to get a few things done. Did I say a few? I mean a MILLION. Because, what woman in her right mind with a brand new baby, four other kids, a farm and other responsibilities wouldn’t want to push herself to finish fixing up her house so she could sell it and move. Perhaps it’s some kind of weird postpartum nesting phase. Whatever it was, it was nice to have one project that I didn’t have to do myself: the carpet.

Helpful Henry.

There are very few home improvements that Jack and I aren’t willing to tackle ourselves and one of them is installing carpet. There are just too many chances for error and if the carpet isn’t cut or stretched just right, it’s pretty darn obvious. So, we treat ourselves to hiring out the help and lucky for us, the carpet we bought was on sale, then consequently out of stock, which earned us an upgrade on carpet when I desperately explained I needed it installed pronto. The store got me on the schedule, so all I had to do was move a couple pieces of furniture, pull up a small section of old carpet off the steps (not our grand staircase…I already pulled the carpet off those looooong ago), and put up my feet.

Why do I alway assume things will be simple?? I thought I’d take it easy by riping out the carpet first since it was such a small section. But, in typical weird home improvement style of former owners, whoever installed the carpet before stapled the crap out of those stairs. Two hours and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears later, I finally ripped the last shred off.

Then, onto the furniture. Since Henry’s room wasn’t being carpeted thanks to the free floor we put in a while back, he was the lucky one who got all the junk shoved into his room. Oddly enough, he thought it was fun sleeping in a room that looked like it belonged to a hoarder.

On our end of the house, we managed to fit all our things into the master bath. Thank goodness that room is large. We almost lost Claire in the sea of stuff when I sent her in to retrieve a new onesie for Zoey. It was close, but she made it.

The next morning, the carpet installers got started hammering away. Since our project was so big, they decided to split the work into two days. Day one, they installed virtually miles of tack strip, then rolled out the padding. Then left us with a reminder not to step on the tack strip. Joy.

Though we tried, I think we all stepped on the tack strip a time or two but Henry got the brunt of the pokes. He just couldn’t remember to watch where he was walking. Thankfully, he and his chubby, well-padded feet survived.

I honestly considerd tipping those poor men who had to carry all those rolls of carpet up the stairs but decided against it. Instead, we just stayed out of the way and watched the magic unfold.

And just like that, the carpet was done. I splurged on a new vaccum (vacuuming is one of my very favorite household chores–it’s like mowing inside!), eventually convinced myself to get the furniture put back, and have been enjoying the soft, fluffy carpet ever since.