Welcome to Clean Freak Confessions, a celebration for sharing personal cleaning experiences and tips from leading bloggers. Join the conversation and share your thoughts with us!
My husband and I spent several hours this morning dismantling our basement so that a crew of carpet installers could come in and tear apart the floors. This last, most insane project is the result of my overwhelming, almost blinding nesting instinct, and is not something I would recommend to anyone, let alone someone who is going to give birth in less than four weeks. It’s almost as stressful as moving to an entirely new house, except without the judgmental glares from new neighbors who are trying to assess whether or not you’re the type of family who parks their car on cinderblocks in the front yard.
We needed new carpet for a couple of reasons, the main one being aesthetics. We also haven’t had the carpets cleaned since moving into this house, and since the previous owners had a cat my husband has been spending almost every second of his life cursing his overactive allergies. Removing this carpet should save him a couple thousand sneezes per day, at the minimum, and I’m betting that before the last inch of it is laid into the corners of our bedroom he will turn to me and declare dramatically that his allergies are cured. Because he’s cute like that.
The worst part of this hasn’t been watching him move all the furniture out onto the patio in the backyard but seeing the stains on the underside of the carpet as it is dragged into the driveway. Yuck! The size and colors of those stains! When the old carpet came upstairs from the room that will be the new baby’s nursery, I saw a stain that was most likely a result of my cousin George’s fateful summer in that room. It looked like he spilled at least a keg of Miller Lite or murdered a friend and covered up the evidence.
The new carpet needs a steam cleaner, which we’ll be looking at in a few months, after we’ve moved all the crap from our basement back in and settled back into the rooms. Oh yeah, and AFTER I HAVE PUSHED A BABY OUT.
The blog owner requires users to be logged in to be able to vote for this post.
Alternatively, if you do not have an account yet you can create one here.
Powered by Vote It Up
I am not exaggerating when I say that buying a Rug Doctor (not renting, owning) saved our marriage. We have cream colored carpet under our dining table and in the main living area, and with three kids, the alien stains that were popping up all the time stressed out my husband and myself.
We use The Doctor (pronounced just like “The Doctor” in Doctor Who) about once a month or two, and in the intervening times, just relax about stains because we know The Doctor will handle it. Later.
Our basement is in much the same condition right now for almost the same reason (previous owner had cats AND an old dog). But it’s funny how these little projects cause a domino effect…we started out replacing the carpet with vinyl tile, and now we are completely redoing the sheet rock on all the walls. And I can’t use nesting as an excuse - my “baby” is 12! Maybe I’ll have a usable room again by the new year…
I think I saw on your blog that you got wool carpet. I too, have ze wool, and I love it. You should look into a cleaning kit specifically for wool. Wools of New Zealand makes a good kit. You can use some pretty strong spirits on wool to get out greasy stains, but we were warned against over steaming, because a lot of hot water + wool = not great.