Project 2: Removing Carpet

Now that our foundation work is done, it’s time to install new flooring! When we originally looked at the house I knew the gross old blue carpet had to go. At the time we planned on keeping the white carpet in the formal living room and dining room.  However, we ended up having so many interior piers installed; we need to replace everything but the Den, Kitchen and bathrooms.

 If you saw my last post, you may have noticed that the foundation people left us with piles of carpet in many rooms. They just rolled it out of the way so they could get to the slab. While efficient for them, this is not conducive to easy clean up. So, our big project last weekend was getting all the carpet out. (If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to put down laminate flooring, stay tuned, I’ll have lots to share next week).

To get the carpet out I needed a couple of things: gloves, mask and a carpet cutter.  Here is the cutter I bought at Home Depot (I swear they know me by name already).

I liked this cutter. It did the job and only cost about $5. I also got the gloves at Home Depot and paid $10 for them. They are even teal, gray and black… it was meant to be.

Here is a picture I took of myself ready to take on the carpet:

I was working with two situations. In some rooms the carpet was in a heap in the middle of the floor. In other rooms, it was mostly intact, just pulled back from the wall. (The foundation guys have to pull back carpet even in rooms they don’t touch because they need to put their leveling machine directly on the slab to make sure the job is done correctly. This was news to me.)

I don’t know if you know this, but carpet is HEAVY. Plus there is a layer of padding, so it’s really twice as much to carry out. I am not a body builder, so I couldn’t just carry the piles of carpet out. Instead, I used the carpet cutter to cut down the pile of carpet into manageable pieces, which I could then throw out.

In the rooms with where the carpet was piled in the middle, I was able to kind of hack away at it piece by piece. In the rooms where the carpet was mostly intact, I could be much more methodical. I decided it’s best to share the methodical way, since most people removing carpet are probably not dealing with blobs. (That and because pictures of me attacking the piled carpet like a mad scientist doing surgery on an alien life form probably isn’t very attractive.)

(Disclaimer: I have no clue what I’m doing… so this is only for the sake of learning from my experience, I am not an expert in ANY way)

Step one:

Pull the carpet away from the wall. If you carpet is completely intact they say you just grab at a corner with pliers.  I didn’t need to do this because the nice foundation men already pulled back a whole section. Once you get it started it comes up pretty easily. Pull back a section like you’re folding a piece of paper down. Like so:

Step two:

The next part is getting your cut ready. The carpet cutter works way better on the backside of the carpet instead of trying to cut through the plush side. This is why we peel it back. However, it’s still not thin and easy to cut, so you have to put a little snip in the top to get it started. To do this I leaned in close and used the carpet cutter like a little saw. You could probably use a heavy duty pair of scissors… I just didn’t have any handy.

Step three:

Here is the part where you have to be careful because that carpet cutter is SHARP! The next step is to cut the carpet all the way down. I know from years of parental advice that “you should never cut towards yourself”.  While this is 100% correct, I also find you get the best leverage if you DO cut toward yourself (easier to pull a blade then push it). So, I came up with this attractive technique; I cut like I’m hiking a football.

As you can see, this means that if the blade goes out of control I do not cut myself, yet I can still pull the blade towards myself. Now, I wouldn’t use method this with a big blade, but for this job it was perfect.

Step four:

Now that you have a big strip of carpet you just roll it up and throw it out! Easy as pie. Oh, and the carpet padding just rips apart easily, no need to cut. Just rip into strips, roll, and toss.

That’s how I got the carpet out! (:

Here is an after picture of our dining room (notice the pizza boxes):

You may notice the carpet tack strips are still there. (These are strips of wood with tacks sticking straight up that go around the outside of the room and hold the carpet in place.) I’ve decided to share how I got these up in another post. Somewhat because I consider that part of prepping the floor to lay laminate; but mostly because this post is already WAY too long.

Project cost: $15 + $60 (more about the $60 tomorrow; it was spent on a trash vessel)

Time: ALL DAY (well about 5 hours total)

Difficulty: Easy but very physically demanding. Not hard to do, but hard on your body so don’t attempt unless you’re healthy.