Powder, Ghost Turds and Scrapers.

When I last hollered at you guys, we'd finished removing carpet, tack strip and staples from the bathroom, Xavier's room and the second-floor hallway. Avy and CJ got into the office and master bedroom while I was at work, and they ripped up the carpets. Nothing major to discuss about those. In fact, I don't even have pictures of the office. Oops.

The carpet was, as previously described, stinky and nasty. In Xavier's room, the carpet padding was relatively solid. Nasty, but solid. The rest of the rooms had that foul gossamer spider web/ghost turd membrane over decayed sand/powder padding stuff under the carpets. It smelled as bad as the carpet... just in powder form. Powdered funk. Ick.

Makes you wanna yell out, "The world is MINE!" and then take a big whiff, right?

So yeah, that's what were were seeing under the carpets. Not so pleasant, but a broom and dustpan did the job. Actually, I really should have gotten video of it, but, in order to break up the dessicated padding, we found that a modified Twist or Watusi dance step was highly effective as a padding loosening technique. You will just have to imagine the scene, OK? It was a little ridiculous.

When I arrived at The Serpico House on Friday, my living room and dining room were full folks--my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, her son, my son... Kind of nice to come home to a full house, actually!

My bro-in-law, Kenny, and Avy were up in the bedroom, pulling up tack strip. They'd taken care of the carpet on the steps, too. Progress! Of course, another never-ending project involved making a dent in the removal of the five bazillion carpet staples anchored in the floor. I am starting to think that the carpet installers were paid by the staple.

Kenny is a great helper--what he lacks in experience, he makes up for with willingness to learn, a positive attitude and plain old youthful exuberance. Basically, he's a great kid who just wants to help out, and he doesn't get tired. Once he learned how to remove tack strip, he knocked out the rest of the room while I gave him pointers. I know it sounds like I was being lazy, and I'm not gonna lie... I was tired as hell after a full day of work, and Kenny was a very willing student. So, yeah. I was lazy. I let Ken do the hard stuff.

Avy and I eventually sent everyone on their way, and, with Xavier safely ensconced at my mother-in-law's place, we decided to take a little time for ourselves and test out a nearby Korean barbecue restaurant. After a spicy meal, we conked out in a pile of blankets on that nasty living room floor. I was so tired that the smell of the floor didn't keep me awake.

Sleeping on the floor is um... not so grate, akshully. On the plus side, the discomfort made us wake up early, which was good. We managed to finish up in the office and our bedroom.

Here's the bedroom, post carpet and tack strip removal.

It appears that, at some point, there was an area rug on the floor in this room, which is apparent from the darker area around the perimeter. I suppose this color disparity might bother some folks, but not me. I think it's kind of cool, really. I don't need the floor to look like it's brand new--I just want nice, clean, unstinky hardwoods. You can also see the sheer hugeness of the room. The bedroom is about the same size as the living room. Crazy, right?

So let's talk about carpet staples now. I can't begin to tell you how many damn staples were in the floor and steps. Making a repeat appearance, my man Kenny and I spent much of Saturday morning pulling staples and tufts of carpet out of these steps during Avy's dance class. The end result was worth the effort.


Kenny and I moved on and started work on the dining room. The actual removal wasn't bad. I got Kenny his own razor knife thing--the kind with the metal handle and the non-retractable blade. That carpet was predictably gross, as was the padding underneath. On this excursion, we were lucky enough to have a shop vac at our disposal. Awesome--a super-powerful vacuum with a giant bucket of capacity. I swept, Kenny ran the vac. We eventually got enough of the "padding cocaine" off of the floor, and we started in on the tack strip and staple removal with the help of Avy (who was done with class) and Angel, one of her classmates (and a good friend.)

The dining room was the first place where we encountered real problems with the padding. Apparently, since it was a dining room, there were occasional food/beverage spills, and these spills did not mesh well with the mummy-like consistency of the carpet padding. In short, some of these spills went right through the carpet and into the padding, which, in turn, became something like a cement. The areas where the padding had been wet were just kind of stuck to the floor. Attacking these areas was not pleasant or particularly fun, but we went after them with plastic scrapers in order to avoid damaging the floor, and I eventually tried chipping away at them with the razors, too. By the time we were finished, I think it looked pretty sweet. Check it out...
Is it perfect? No. It's not a perfect hardwood floor, but that's OK. It's free of stinky carpet and padding, and it's clean. We are fairly confident that a nice scrubbing will take care of any egregious stains.

By the time we had finished with the dining room, we were slap-happy and exhausted, so we returned to our condo to sleep.

Kenny was ready to rock bright and early, so we decided to tackle the living room floor, which, by the way, was the last room to need the carpet removed. I'm not messing with carpets again until we re-do our kitchen.

This time, I had the presence of mind to take pictures during the process.

What you're seeing in the above shot is a nice wood floor covered with hunks of dried-out carpet padding and "ghost turds"--that gauzy, spider-web-like crap on top of the padding.

And this one, just above? This is what it looks like right after the carpet comes up. I guess the white gauzy stuff is kind of like the skin on a nice brie cheese, except the obvious difference here is that the stuff under the skin is yellowish, stinky and sandy. Brie isn't sandy.

Sadly, there were more of those damn "cement" spots in the living room--yet another reason to keep your snacks and drinks off out of carpeted rooms. Or just don't put down carpet. Or have the padding changed from time to time. The padding "cement" areas start out like this...


After a little scraping, it gets better...

We'll go after them with a little vinegar, water and a scrub brush. I think that'll knock them out.

We got rid of the tack strip--Avy has major tack strip removal skills!--but we still have plenty of &*(^%^&&** staples to remove. The number of staples in the floor can not be exaggerated. I think we have two small trash cans halfway full of nothing but staples. We could melt them down and make a chain-link fence or something.

Anyway, this is how we left the living room on Sunday...

Again, not perfect, but we're working on it. Things are coming along.

Thinking positively, we're almost ready to paint!

The Goods.

So, you've got the back story, but let's face it... what you really want to see is the actual place, right?

Well, OK. Let's have a look. This is "The Serpico House" as you arrive at the driveway.




Pretty respectable and grown-up, right? Avy's pretty grown-up. Xavier's kind of respectable. I am neither of these things. Oh well, every neighborhood has one house that lowers the property values for everyone. I can't wait to litter that yard with car parts and an old refrigerator!

Kidding. I'm kidding. I will mow the lawn and trim the hedges like a good neighbor. Nobody will have any idea about the many depraved, low-class things happening behind closed doors at The Serpico House. Muahhahhahah... or something.

Let's walk in...




Yes, I see it. The corners of the steps need fixing. I'll get on it. I've already looked into the proper methods for repairing broken concrete steps, and I promise to get started as soon as possible. We haven't even signed the papers yet, OK? Sheesh.

Let's skip the front door (it's a door, ok?) and check out the living room.



As you can see, we used a wide-angle lens to capture as much of the room as possible, but I think you get the general idea here. The furniture may or may not be left behind when we take possession of the place. If it hangs around, we'll pick and choose, and then... hello, Craigslist. We are not too proud to make a few bucks online. Nope.

The carpets are as dismal and generally foul as they look, but we have reason to believe a nice hardwood lies beneath these gross, smelly things. And, yes, that's a real fireplace.... a gas fireplace with a remote control. Yep. I think that's gonna be pretty sweet once winter comes around, which, by the looks of things, is probably tomorrow. What happened to fall?


This is a view of the living room from a different angle. The fireplace would be behind you and to your left if you took this picture.. but you didn't take this picture, so stop taking credit for it. Oh yeah, those people in the picture? That'd be my dad (Bob) on the right and my mom (Shelly) on the left. That's the realtor in the middle, holding the toy truck. Just kidding. It's Xavier, the Smallest of Bears, leading the tour. He walked in there like he owned the joint from the very beginning. I think he knew something we didn't.

Right off the bat, I can tell you we are gonna try to sell that fugly mirror on the wall there. I'm pretty sure the owners aren't taking it. I will hope against hope that they will, but I doubt we will be so lucky.

Next, the dining room.



Pretty standard fare. More stinky carpet. I am, once again, hoping the furniture will be leaving, but, if it stays, I think Avy wants to keep the hutch thingy. Personally, I don't like those things, but she likes it, so... happy wife, happy life, right? I really hate the chandelier. I want that gone immediately... I'm thinking recessed lighting, or, if we can't do that, at least something that will sit closer to the ceiling. Call me odd if you want, but I don't like the idea of some big dangly wood and metal thing hanging from a chain over my head while I am eating. Oh yeah, you can't see it, but there's a bay window to the right. Pretty sweet.

Here comes a horror show. The kitchen.

Why, yes, that is, indeed, carpet. In the kitchen. What the hell? And... um.. yeah. A drop ceiling. And shiny wood paneling. And coral-colored counter tops. Don't ask me why the Serpicos wanted their kitchen to look like an office building crossed with a log cabin crossed with.. um.. something coral-colored, but it probably has something to do with sticking it to the man. Anyway... this is what we've got, so we're gonna see if we can make it work somehow. Avy says she will learn to tile. I say... YAY. Because I don't think I would be any good at tiling at all. And, yeah... you are seeing the washer and dryer at the end, there. On the plus side, everything in this room is absolutely immaculate, and we've been told that everything works perfectly. The Serpicos apparently took very good care of their things. I believe it. Aside from the rug being nasty, the place is immaculate.

There's a little half bath next to the kitchen...




Nothing earth-shattering... but there's frickin' carpet in there, too. Ugh. And I think we want to see about getting some different lighting, a different, non-medicine chest mirror and possibly a smaller sink. And ditching the carpet. So yeah, you know... not a lot of stuff to change here, right? Ugh.

But this is nice...



One thing Mrs. Serpico did correctly was build a nice patio and take care of her yard. She obviously loved the outdoors, and you really get the idea that she spent a lot of time out on this lovely little patio. The back yard is pretty large, and Xavier already loves it. He's only visited it twice, but he's checked out every corner already.

OK, we'll go upstairs tomorrow.