Yuck! This has got to be the worst job yet. I've been taking up the horrible dark blue carpet on the stairs and it's really getting up my nose. The problem isn't the carpet itself - that comes up easily enough. It's the underlay beneath it, which has a rubber underside which has perished. The result is a few large lumps of rubber and a lot of very fine black dust. Quite a lot has stuck to the wood and I have to scrape it off, creating yet another dust storm. One lesson I've learned from this is that it is worth investing in good underlay.
I must be quite a sight, with my hair stuck under an old hat and a dust mask over my nose and mouth to stop from choking on the stuff. But it's going to be worth it. As you can see, the wood underneath is basically sound. At some time in the past the edges seem to have been painted white and there was probably a carpet runner up the middle.
The next stage is to take off the carpet grippers using a couple of blunt chisels and a mallet - noisy but effective. I'm glad I've got good gloves on to protect me from all those nails. Then it's down to the tip with the whole lot. I find that hurling it all into the containers is very therapeutic.
Eventually I will strip off the paint, clean the treads and sand them down to bring up a clean wood surface. Then I'll put on several layers of clear, hard varnish and it's ready to walk on again. You can see from the skirting boards along the sides just how nice it could look once it's finished. Why anyone would want to hide such lovely old wood under a horrid carpet is beyond me.
No comments:
Post a Comment