The day I closed on the building, we got the keys and headed straight there to start working (and celebrating!!). I had removed my optimism hat, narrowed my goals for the day down to just ONE reasonable goal..... and it was to remove all of the nasty carpet and have it in the dumpster by the end of the day.
Sounds easy, right? I thought so too.
Now let me set the scene for you... The ENTIRE building was carpeted and had never been updated or cleaned (and also the whole building was covered in wood paneling... what were they smoking in the 70's, am I right??). There was no padding under the carpet, it was just really thin carpet applied directly to the floor with what seemed like gallons of glue.
Turns out, CARPET GLUE IS THE LITERALLY THE WORST.
PSA: No one should ever use carpet glue, like ever.
My theory is that some worker accidentally spilled a giant bucket of glue all over the building and decided it was too late to try and clean it up, so he just left all of the glue and probably thought "I feel sorry for the chump who tries to remove this carpet someday, har har har." (in my mind, he is a sailor or maybe an evil pirate).
***Check out the links below for fun boomerangs of me and my sister in the process of removing said carpet from the glue covered floors***
While we did end up getting all of the carpet removed THE VERY FIRST DAY (because we are very determined humans), we also spent the better part of two weeks hand scraping and sanding the glue off the floors. The term sweat equity was never more true.
***Click here to see a time lapse video of me and my sister HAND SCRAPPING the glue off the floors because we are crazy perfectionist Enneagram type 1 people***
This was definitely not something we were expecting to spend any amount of time or money or energy on, so it is quite a feat that I can proudly say that the floors are now free from their bondage (i.e. the carpet glue that was holding them back from being beautiful). While they aren't perfect, they are a million times nicer than before.
We will have lots more building updates coming your way soon, but for now check out the **almost** finished floors and be completely amazed (please and thanks).