NO CARPET - HARDWOOD

That's the short version. Here's the long one:

Last night a shmiracle happened.

I was slaving away in my new cold room, vacuuming the carpet. Or you could say I was trying to vacuum the carpet. Some carpets are just so dirty that no matter what you do, they will always be dirty. Such was the condition of my carpet.

Since I didn't think my heater worked (I'd fiddled with it before and nothing), I plugged in my portable heater from the pink room and the bathroom's heater and turned them both on and eventually the new room got warmer.

Meanwhile, in the same socket I had plugged in my temporary closet light and the vacuum.

I blew the circuits. Whoops.

Hayden and I couldn't figure out the circuit breaker (who can? I ask you, who can?) We got Peter (landlord) to come out and figure it out. Nothing was working so he came up to my room like a detective with something red that he poked into the sockets, giving a puzzled look at the two large portable heaters. (What can I say? I feel the cold easy.) Felt rather like a misbehaved child. He went over to the wall heater which I thought was broken and I told him I wanted to get that fixed, could he fix it, replace it? He tinkered with it, what do you know, it magically turned on! Then I asked him to show me how to use it. It's all in turning it to the right for "on" and left for "off." Whadyaknow.

He noted this ugly metal pole sticking up in the corner of my room - remnant pipe from the non-working gas heaters he'd removed from all our rooms a while back - and told me he could get rid of that if I wanted.

I didn't want to be much of a bother so I told him it was ok, don't worry about it, I'd be putting my armoire or something over there anyways.

He left to continue fixing our electricity problem and I went back to vacuuming and took a good, long, hard look at the ugly metal toadstool thing poking up out of the corner.

Well.

What was wrong with me?

I ran down and told Peter I changed my mind, would he mind taking that metal thing out?

As usual, when you make a request from dear Peter, he looked stressed. I think he thought I meant like right that minute. He said he'd take it out over the weekend. Great.

I went back upstairs and back to vacuuming. As I said this carpet was getting nowhere near clean, no matter how much I went over it with the vacuum. I could see that after all the work of taking out what I could with Goof Off stain remover and steam cleaning, in the end I'd be left with a stained, dusty, slightly less dirty carpet.

I decided I would just ask Peter again - (what's the harm in asking, right?) - would it be possible if I could get new carpet? I ran down and caught Peter just as he closed his own door. (*sigh.. in retrospect, I believe I caught him at the best moment for my request - I'm sure he just wanted to get back upstairs into his cozy home and back to life.) I asked, "So no new carpet?" in my best hopeful-sounding voice. I told him that no matter how clean I got the carpet, it still had all these stains and would be discolored, and that now would be a great time to do it. Then it was like he was trying to get rid of - he told me just to do the hardwood, I could take care of it, etc. YIPPY!!!

I ran upstairs and surveyed my room. I had this feeling like what am I getting myself into? I couldn't even get a good grip of carpet except in the closet.

I started pulling the carpet up in the closet. Underneath was this blue padding. Under that was the hardwood - not bad condition, with some paint on it.

Once I had the closet carpet up, the rest was a cinch. It was only attached around the edges. In the bedroom, there was this yellow linoleum that came up easily, and under that - wait for it, wait for it -- BEAUTIFUL HARDWOOD!

The end of it is: I got all the carpet, linoleum, and nailed-down wood edges up last night. In the bedroom the hardwood is awesome, just barely needs a bit of care. The hardwood in the closet I'm going to take care of - Andre's mom has experience and so he knows some simpler, faster ways of getting it up to snuff.

It looks great. When I first realized I'd be taking Trena's old room, I envisioned hardwood floors and warm, peach walls. It's coming to fruition. Hayden and Tamaris came in last night to congratulate me and we all celebrated a little. Dorky but fun.

:)

All because I busted a socket.