Design Studio: progress report

Here's what my studio looked like at 4:47 pm. Most of the things that used to litter the floor have been removed. Now, I don't want you to get too overwhelmed by my talents, but not everyone knows that I am an experienced carpet remover. It's not just that I'm experienced at it...I'm damn good at it. Which is so fortunate since I have not only my studio carpet to remove, but in the very near future I have the living room carpet to remove, and then at some rather hazy time in the future my office carpet must also be removed.

Before I show you the progress I made today, I would like to share a very revealing photo to you. I want you to know what disgusting interesting things lurk around in my house. My menfolk collect peculiar things. Look closely at that garage window sill. I include this picture merely to give you an idea of the scale...

...of this dusty dead vile creature. This is not the first time I have discovered nasty dead things in my house unexpectedly. It's a good thing I don't have any anxieties or anything. Because if I did I might find it extra distressing to be living in the same house with a possum carcass. Now, it's been a long time since I lived freely with roaches, so maybe my memory is a little hazy, but doesn't this look an awful like like a cockroach? If it is, I can't help but wonder if Philip saved this one from our first apartment together in San Francisco.

Here we are then... peeling the oatmeal plush carpet away as though it was light as air and as accommodating as a cloud of cool whip. For most people, negotiating carpet off of the floor and out of the house is a rather burdensome awkward as ass kind of job, but not for me. You know, removing this carpet would have been a mite more satisfying if I got to uncover a beautifully worn hardwood floor.

I think carpet padding is really creepy. I don't like touching it or being near it. But a woman cannot shirk her work. Is it necessary for all carpet padding to be this loud unsavory blue color? Is this to keep us from trying to eat it?

You may not know the history of carpet tacking...originally a medieval torture device it was invented in the 1200's by a very angry wife who needed a way to punish her spouse for bathing more often than is seemly and thus shaming her amongst their more appropriately pungent friends. She invented these narrow strips of nail shot wood to spank him with. Ouch.

No, but seriously, if you have not gotten up close and personal with carpet tacking and tried to remove it without puncturing yourself five hundred times, you are missing out on a real treat of a challenge.

These are the tools I use for this job. See the subflooring I have revealed? On seeing it up close and personal I have decided that no amount of paint is going to really improve it. So I've made an exploratory trip to Lowe's in search of alternatives. The only thing I can both afford and also be capable of installing myself are those sticky backed tiles that Armstrong makes. Yeah, I can tell you right now that I will have those tiles peeling up and curling in no time at all.

As with virtually every house project, removing something in your house reveals the ugly truth. It tells stories about your abode you may not want to hear. Such as the fact that water has gotten into your cozy home and blackened the plywood where the nails have been soaking. Not good. There are watermarks all along the inside of the sliding door.

I'm tired.