Diary of a Bad Homeowner, Part I:

So we bought our house 5 years ago and got the keys about 5 days before we moved in. I had such plans - PAINT the thing on the inside, top to bottom (to rid ourselves of the flat pea green paint the seller had "custom made" for the house), rip up the carpets, consider reconditioning the floors, and turn the patio door around so it was no longer backwards.
Instantly, those plans melted into some painting here and there, ripping up the carpet in our Master bedroom, cursing those little tack strips and vowing that if the carpet ever got ripped up it would be by my dollar and someone else's hand. Then we fell into the chaos of home ownership: a few new appliances, a backed up sewer, a sprinkler system that froze on the first of May, you know, things like that.
And since then, I have hated our carpets. Look, it's not bad carpet - it's Berber that's held up strangely well, covering up the fact that it was once white but is now entirely gray and is probably 20 years old. I knew we had hardwoods under the carpet - throughout the house - but what I didn't know was the condition of the hardwoods.
And here's where I should tell you something about myself: Typically speaking, if I cannot finish it in a day, I don't start it. I grade all of my students' essays in a day, upload an entire unit in a day, try to complete each and every home project I take on in. . . you guessed it. . . a day. This, as you all know (and I do too) is absolutely unreasonable when it comes to larger projects like, say, pulling up carpet and reconditioning hardwoods. Hardwood floors take time. They take effort. But here's what's lovely: They don't spark 3 hour long allergy attacks in my husband.
So while we were out of town, I decided I was going to pull up the remaining carpets in our house. I would take my time, yes. There's the pulling up carpet, hacking it to bits to put in the trash, using needle-nose pliers to pull the staples, crow-barring the tack strips, then the dust, dust, and more dust, and the cleanup. Oy. So I would do it. . . and being pregnant, I would do it slowly.
And then came last night.
At about midnight, I decided to go back and pull up a corner. Just to see what was underneath. Unfortunately, I picked the most damaged and horrid corner of the room. . . but within 2 minutes of showing Tim, he began to have a terrible allergy attack. I KNEW I couldn't abide keeping these carpets - we're ALL keeled over with allergies right now and I'm telling you, it's the carpet.
So today, it began.

This is the room at nearly the beginning of the project. It's hard, really, to get a good idea of what the carpets look like up close. Suffice to say, their original coloring should match the wall on the inside of the closet. It doesn't.

This is what I like to call the "bad" corner. There's some major wear and tear as well as animal-related (I can only assume, because I choose to assume a dog left that mess and not another urinating animal) staining. From what I understand, short of sanding and refinishing, we might be able to ligten but we'll never remove the stains. I think I'm OK with that, so long as we have no more carpet and can, you know, breathe. There's always throw rugs, right?

So here's the finished project - in this photo is the area with the greatest wear and tear. The other side of the room was most likely covered with a rug or a bed.
And here's the beautiful side. Oh, look at those sweet shiny floors. Forget raindrops on roses, hardwoods are one of my favorite things. And this is just day one - I've pulled everything up and hand-washed (with vinegar and water) the floor, but I haven't used any finishing treatments or stain removers on it yet. Those pictures will likely follow. . .