Fire the vacuum cleaner!

The Incorrigible’s our house, and who leaves their house alone?  Constant redecoration and upgrading are a part of having your own place.

After the mud of Michigan and Nashville followed by the dust of Austin and the sand of Baker (not to mention who knows how much dreck before we owned it), our Dolphin’s carpet was starting to look like it’d be more appropriate in a crackhouse than our house.

So, in a fit of pique one weekend, we ripped it out.  This was not an easy task, but this was no small fit of pique, either.  Removing an RV’s carpet requires, in addition to the usual carpet-pulling exertions, unbolting the furniture from the floor.  Our couch was held in place by eleven large bolts that go into the under-storage.  A lot of crawling around outside was required to negotiate them loose, but we were rewarded with a bare wood floor.

While we had the floor out, Lexie re-covered the walls as well. The Incorrigible’s living area is currently undergoing another metamorphosis, and it’s time for the original wallpaper to go. We found some cool bronze-ish paper in the bargain/discard bin at Home Depot, and brought home a great deal more than we needed.  Rather than trying to remove the existing wallpaper, Lexie glued the new stuff right on top, which has had mixed levels of success.  For the sections that insist on peeling off, we’ll get some wallpaper primer to paint over the old material.

With the walls done, it was time to deal with the bare floor.  We considered upgrading to a snazzy, high-tech Beauflor floor covering, but chose to go the budget route instead, and found a nice big swatch of no-glue vinyl flooring at Menard’s, also on sale.  (Lexie is an experienced and determined bargain shopper)

Getting this stuff inside and laid was, if I do say so myself, a gigantic pain in the ass.  The process was not helped by the fact that the larger section of our two-piece sofa is too large to fit through the door, and thus the new floor–which was a twelve-foot roll–had to be negotiated around, over, and under it while we got it into place and trimmed it to fit.  There’s just no easy way to manage it.  Planning this task yourself?  Prepare for a lot of swearing, and remember: measure twice, cut once.  It’s best to go through several stages of getting the floor installed; first, a rough cut, leaving several inches of extra material on all sides.  The second cut is closer, but don’t try to trim the material to fit exactly until the very end.  We wound up with a couple of bad spots, but if you don’t see them, we’re not pointing them out.

The vinyl is held down by wall moldings (and the couch, which is bolted through it), and thus far hasn’t shown any inclination to shift or bubble.  The floor is harder than the carpet was, naturally, so we plan to find a nice throw rug for the living area.

Going partially carpetless has so far been pleasant.  Keeping the living room floor free of grit is much easier than before; when the vacuum cleaner died, we picked up a Bissell carpet sweeper instead of another electric appliance.  Given our small floor space, the carpet sweeper is much more useful, and works on the remaining carpet in the bedroom as well as the vinyl of the living room and the wood kitchen floor.

The next steps will be to procure new curtains and valances for the front half of the moho, and then the cabinets will likely be repainted again.  Stay tuned!