Removing Carpet(s)

From the start, my least favorite room in the cabin was the Woodland Creatures Bedroom.  You may remember this guy.

We spent days and weekends striping all that wallpaper from the wood paneling, sanding, priming and painting the walls.  And we got this beautiful blank pallet. 

  

 But there was still one more major update we needed to make in this room.  I'll give you a hint.

This nasty, brown shag carpet not only looked bad, but it smelled terrible.  Sort of like smoke, sort of like mildew, and a whole lot like get-the-hell-out-of-our-house.

 

So this past weekend it was finally time. I cleared out the furniture, I grabbed my tools and I started peeling the carpet in hopes of seeing an old, wood subfloor below.  Maybe if I was lucky, I could even get pretty blue painted panels like we found in the Dining Room.  

Oh no.  Instead we went the other way.  Waaaaay in the other directions.  

  

Peak a boo.

 

When I first peeled it back I started laughing immediately.  Of course this room would give us another kick in the shins on the way out.  The Woodland Creatures Room doesn't go down without a fight.  But the more I peeled back, the funnier it became.  I mean, who installs carpet that looks like this?

  

The worst part of this lazy carpet install is that they attached the carpet tack directly onto of the original avocado surprise, which made it 10 times harder to get my pry bar under the tack strips to get it out of there.

 

This part was terrible, and I've completed a lot of terrible DIY projects.  But sitting on this stinky, mildewy, decades old shag, attempting to pry out the tack strips, the clang of the pry bar literally ringing in my ears, was terrible. Maybe because it was a beautiful day, or the fact that I thought this little project would be quick and easy, but it was getting the best of me.

 

And then... well... it got worse.

Can you believe this insanely ugly linoleum that was underneath?  The fuzzy booger rug came complete with an attached pad, which stuck to the linoleum over the decades.  So not only did I have to pry off the tack strips and roll up the carpet, but then I had to scape off what was left of the pad.  

And with that, on our third disgusting flooring option in this room, I called uncle.  We'll clean and disinfect the linoleum, but there's no reason to pull it up.  Our new carpet and carpet pad should fit over this eye sore no problem.  So for now, I leave you with this.  Quite possibly the worst "after" photo I've ever published. 

You're welcome.