Decorating 10

So, a day of some things positive and some things - well, let's just say, not so positive.

First things first - a picture of the new light switch. Well, actually it is the old light switch, but in a new position. If you remember, it was about three feet from the door; it is now only six inches from the door. It was actually completed last night, but I forgot to photograph it.

I couldn't go to the house this morning, as I had an appointment at home. But OH went and made some progress. For one thing, he has started to remove the furniture that was left behind by the previous owner and has taken the back bedroom carpet out, along with its underlay.

He replaced the blind on the back bedroom window - removed in order to paper and paint the window reveals and now hanging back in place.

We also now have every home owner's dream - a bath in the kitchen!! It reminded me of when OH and I first met - he had just replaced his bathroom suite and there was an upturned bath on the landing floor, where it remained for some considerable time (well, it was cast iron, so really heavy and difficult to remove). 

Well, at least that means it's no longer in the bathroom, where it needed to be removed from.

I removed the carpet from the bathroom floor. It was foam backed and had been glued down, but thankfully it came up without issue - that is, it didn't leave bits of its foam backing all over the floor! 

But why do people lay carpet over rubbish they should have swept up before putting new flooring down??

This was underneath the carpet!

There is a stain in the corner behind the toilet, which was expected, as this is the floor that backs onto the back bedroom wardrobe which had had a leak for some time. The floor is currently dry, so no problems there. The other stains are just from the glue.

I'm not so sure about how the waste pipe is fitted though.

But then things never go altogether according to plan, do they. There is always something to throw a spanner in the works. I was on a roll, and it was a mistake to think it would all go swimmingly.

My next task was to remove the carpet from the hall, stairs and landing. It came up easily enough, even where it was well attached to the gripper rods on the stairs. It will not go to waste, either, as there is a huge walk-in cupboard in the front bedroom that the hall carpet will fit in nicely. So three bits of carpet later and we have a clear hall, stairs and landing.

The landing was straight forward, once I got the carpet and underlay under control - some of it had continued down the first couple of stairs, but it came up okay. The landing floor was swept and so that is now ready.

Next, I turned my attention to the stairs. The underlay had been stapled to the stairs. So had the previous underlay - and the staples had not been removed. 

They weren't all this clear - some still had bits of underlay beneath them, which is how I know there were two types of underlay in the past

There were at least nine staples on each stair, and one or three (depending which stair we were on) on the vertical riser - making 130 staples altogether to remove. Great fun!

But the hall - well, that was a different matter. The carpet came up easily enough. The first thing I noticed was the wiring - if you can call it that! There was a wire trailing around the corners of the landing, but that was not unexpected. 

What was unexpected was the number of wires trailing around the hall - and the fact that they just ended - that's right, they were just cut ends - all but two, which were kind of tied in loops and had some kind of tape around the ends. And all this was underneath the carpet!! We do have to fit some kind of wiring for the stair lift, but it seems there are a few other wires that need tidying up too!

I was surprised to see that the gripper rods had been placed some distance from the front door and a strip of underlay between it and the actual door. It was obvious why once I lifted the strip. Between the door and the floor was a gap about 2" wide and at least as deep.

On this one, you can see remnants of carpet and newspaper (see below) , as well as the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door frame

At the ends, where the door frame fits to the (what should have been) floor, the gluey stuff (rubbery stuff that seals and sticks the frame to the wall/floor) had carpet stuck into it. If I pulled at the carpet, it was pulling the sealing stuff out too. And to cap it all, it was not the carpet I had just taken up (green), but presumably the previous one (orange). It seems the frame had been stuck on top of the carpet, rather like the window frames had been stuck on top of the wall paper!

The door itself had clearly not fitted properly, because there is newspaper - yes, you read that right - newspaper stuffed in the gaps. There was also a nasty draught coming in under the door.

Yes, that is newspaper stuffed in there!

Obviously the gap needs filling, but that means even if we did it this evening, there is no way it would be dry and firm enough for the carpet fitters who are meant to be coming tomorrow. I rang them and postponed. But as time is now getting very tight, I have rescheduled for Monday, which gives OH tomorrow to fill the gap, Saturday and Sunday for it to dry and Tuesday to fit the stair lift, before going away on Wednesday. Let's hope all goes straight forwardly from here!