Well, Shelby helped us out. Shelby is our dog that doesn't seem to be able to be house broke. We got back from somewhere later at night and didn't see that she had yet again used the carpet instead of waiting to go outside. Neither of us saw it (it was dark, we went right to bed) and the next morning, Brian was convinced the whole house smelled like dog pee. I woke up to him opening all the windows in the house and turning the fans on. I inquired what this was for and he said "The carpet is disgusting" to which I said "I'm tellin' ya, we should just rip it out and finish the plywood floors... a couple of nice rugs and voila, no more dog pee smell". He agreed for one millisecond and before he could change his mind, I was moving furniture in my pj's and looking for a sharp knife.
A half hour later, this is what we had accomplished. This is after using the shop vac to clean up the 1/2 inch of pulverized dust that was under the high traffic area of the carpet. It's echo-ey in here now, but I swear I can tell the difference in the air quality.
Goodbye, carpet.
Shelby and Magpie, wondering what the heck is going on. Notice the carpet in the back of the photo... since this photo was taken, ALL that carpet is gone too. I pulled it out about two days later. While I was gone at the Iowa State Fair, Brian removed all the staples/nails and cleaned the whole floor. :)
The plan for the floor is to level the rough spots, fill in the cracks and holes with filler caulk, paint it with Kilz, paint it a neutral color, and cover it with two or three coats of polyurethane .... then a couple of rugs to make it a little less echo-ey. Then if we have a dog-rug-pee incident, I can just drag the rug outside and power wash it instead of having to rent a rug doctor (which, btw, never really seemed to work well on our carpet).
Any ideas/suggestions for a floor color? I was thinking maybe a dark-ish green, but will that make the living room look tiny? I'm open to ideas. :)
I have one floor that we painted dark green.. let it dry .. then painted terra cotta over the top. We taped a border off -- so there is green bordering it. But as the paint wears ... we have the green peaking through.
ReplyDeleteThen I did one ... several shades of blue .. looks like worn blue jeans.
And one is just medium green .. which I really like and since my room is only 7'x 15' -- it doesn't close the room up.
Maybe this will help.
PS.... I love my painted floors!
I did the same a few years ago. Pulled out all of my carpet and lived with OSB for over a year. Initially I had it painted white KILZ, but with the dogs, it was immediately dirty. So I painted it Cowboy Brown. Looked great until the dogs walked on it and the mud dried. Foot prints everywhere! I would select something that would hide dirt. By the way, I installed real hardwood floors in when I got tired of cleaning.
ReplyDeleteI think the splater floors like they put in high end repairshops.really if cars can drive on it ,it should survive dogs and Brian.
ReplyDelete*Renee*
I haven't ever used it on wood, but the garage epoxy based floors coverings are wonderful. Not exactly green, but honestly, I would argue more green and definitely more durable than carpet. More durable than regular paint, too. The last place we put it in was in a garage and in a basement that constantly had water issues. Prep, roll it on, and then if you want you can use their little sprinkles to add some dimension, or go the route Miss Effie went use a different shade to make more of a pattern. You get used to the echoes-and learn to appreciate them over the smelly carpet that is so much more difficult to maintain. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteEverything goes full circle doesn't it? I remember when the floor looked like that and I haven't been there since you pulled it up!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I JUST ripped up the carpet in an old duplex apartment we are renting. There were hardwood floors underneath. The hardest part for us was getting all the staples and nails out of the floor so we would have a smooth surface to walk on. By the way, we haven't finished that yet. They are tricky and some we couldn't see until we painted the floor. We used a dark brown deck and floor paint. It's thinner than wall paint, goes on smooth, and allowed us to see a bit of wood grain through the paint.
ReplyDelete