Dude, removing wall to wall carpeting (and all the layers under it) is no joke. We learned that when we finally tackled that task this weekend – and lived to tell the tale. Let me just tell you, progress smells a lot better than old carpeting. Even when there’s a substantial amount of sweat involved…
When we bought this house we knew that the four bedrooms upstairs (along with the hallway) needed new flooring since the once-cream (now mostly tan) wall to wall carpets were stained, threadbare, and even holey in some areas.
Thankfully a few areas were so loose we could peek under them during our very first walk-through to see what we were working with. Sadly, there was no hardwood to be found under there, and we were greeted with subfloor. But we’re so glad we made that discovery before buying (we definitely factored that expense into our decision). And after we got over the sadness of not having old hardwoods under there to revive, we got excited about picking out new flooring.
We considered a whole range of things for a while (hardwoods, new wall to wall carpeting, bamboo, tile) and after a lot of thought ended right back at oak hardwoods, since it’s what we had in our first house as well as our current one (even in the bedrooms). We like that we can always toss down an area rug to cozy things up (and since those can change over time it feels a little more flexible than committing to a certain type/color of wall to wall carpet for a decade or two). Plus with a kid and a dog we have just found wood flooring to be easy to keep clean/wipe down/etc.
We also already have oak flooring on the stairs that lead to the second level as well as in the future office, dining room, and living room – so we thought finding some in the same finish and grain would be a nice seamless this-has-always-been-here choice. But before we could bring in some delicious new hardwoods to install ourselves (at least that’s the plan!) we were faced with stripping away all of the aforementioned nasty carpeting in all four bedrooms up there and the hallway… which turned out to be quite the job. Here’s how we got ‘er done.
First we used a mini crowbar to pry back the corner…
With some gentle force it popped right up and we could start to pull it out from that corner.
It definitely wasn’t delicate pulling, more like forceful yanking, but with John working on one corner and me in another we were able to free up enough of it to start rolling it towards the other side of the room (we paused to take this photo, but picture me standing next to John rolling along with him). It’s definitely one of those four-hands-are-better-than-two tasks if possible.
Oh and wear gloves! And long sleeves if you’re smart. We wised up after our forearms got raw from carrying rolls of carpeting down to the garage, where we’re storing it all until we can figure out what to do with it (it’s too gross to donate, so we might need to rent a Bagster or something to get rid of it). Update: thanks for all the info on recycling carpets, cutting them down for curbside pickup, and all the other cheaper/greener alternatives than just trashing them. You guys are geniuses!
Room by room we repeated that process (and down the hallway as well). Pry up the corner, yank yank yank, roll roll roll, and drag that baby down to the garage. In some areas there was so much carpeting that we cut it in half with a box cutter before carrying it down to lighten our load. Then we were left with this lovely blue carpet padding underneath. Which was stapled and nailed down in about a thousand places per room (sadly that’s not an exaggeration).
Just like the carpeting, it could be yanked up, but it left a ton of little staples and nails and tack strips all around the room once it was stripped from the space. These are tack strips. They run around the perimeter of a room and are thin little shim-like pieces of wood with nails poking up through them (they grab the carpet pad and carpet to hold it in place).
Sometimes you can shove a crowbar under them (this takes borderline brute strength, so your palm is red even with gloves on afterwards) and pop them up all as one piece. The hard thing is that if they’re old and brittle (check) sometimes they splinter as they go, which means instead of slamming a prybar against them to try to get each 2′ long strip up in about 30 seconds, if it splinters a ton it can take five minutes to dig out all of the nails and splintered wood that break apart but are still stuck in the floor. You can see me gracefully (and breathlessly) doing this in the video we made for you about five photos down.
I worked on all of the tack strips in the master bedroom while John did the hallway and the nursery and then I tackled the guest room while John worked on Clara’s room. It probably took us about an hour and a half to get that part done, so one person trying to do that all by themselves might be in it for 3+ hours (probably with some blisters even with gloves on).
Once the tack strips were all up we were faced with the harder part…
… these guys.
They were everywhere and the prybar was of no help since it couldn’t really get under them. At first the only way we could get them up was by hand with a needle nosed pliers. One by one. But after John did Clara’s closet that way and it took over an hour (for one closet!!!) we decided we needed to find an alternative. Thankfully a little googling turned up the idea of a nice heavy duty long-handled floor scraper (we got ours for $25 at Lowe’s) and that was a lot faster! It still took some serious strength, and we both had sore backs, but we were able to get all of the staples up in all four bedrooms and the hallway in about two hours (at the by-hand-with-a-pliers-rate we thought it might take us about two days). Warning: if you have hardwoods, you might not want to use a scraper since it could ding them up, but it’s great for subflooring.
The next day we returned to clean up, using a broom to make piles followed by the shop-vac to suck up all the staples and nails.
You can see in this video how each step of the process went (it shows how to get up those tack strips and staples a little better than still photos can):
Now we have smooth, bare subfloors that are ready for hardwood.
We never thought we’d be so glad to see pure unadulterated pressed wood in our lives!
And now our garage looks like this:
That, my friends, is what progress looks like. Turns out progress looks a lot like stinky rolled up carpeting.
But oh happy day, we’re moving in the right direction!
Any other carpet stripping going on? Are the staples your arch nemeses? Those little buggers were infuriating until we discovered The Amazing Wonder-Scraper! Seriously, my “what superhero power would you have?” answer would now be to have a paint roller on one arm and a floor scraper on another. Never know when you’ll need one…
More Flooring Projects
If you would like to read about other flooring projects we’ve done, please check out the posts below:
Kelsey says
You know the carpet was gross when it’s absence looks better than it did! I feel the same way about paint–you KNOW it was awful when just the primer makes the room look better!
Kelli says
At first, I was sad that you were leaving your wonderful home…but now, I am excited to vicariously experience the thrill of moving into a new house! Woot woot! Rip out that carpet!
Dena says
Currently in the process of removing light tan stained berber carpet from 1989 in our 1989 house in #RVA right now… to install hardwood floors in our kids’ rooms to cut down on allergy issues. It. Takes. Forever. And one thing we learned – if you can paint before you do flooring, it’s best – hardwood flooring installation dinged up the walls a bit. We also learned to wear pants, gloves, long sleeves, masks and knee pads. And crank the A/C.
Amelia says
Happy Birthday Clara!!!! We share a b-day, so I will always remember yours :) Hope it’s been a super fun day – congrats on turning 3!
YoungHouseLove says
Happy birthday backatacha, Amelia!
-John
Margaret says
I’m just commenting to bump you from 666 comments :) :)
Michellelhb says
I wish I knew about the scraper about 4 years ago! I pulled up all of the carpet in our old house by myself and those needle nose pliers worked, but were so labor intensive! Happy remodeling:-)
Kim says
Hey there! You just described what we did in November. Oh the staples… We were replacing the carpet and pad, but had kitty damage to deal with from the previous owners. We used Kilz over the ENTIRE house’s floors. Quite the stinky process! We also wore masks to keep the pet dander and dust from clogging up our airways.
Jessica says
We had to remove the 20 year old dirty, gross carpet from our house. We moved in almost 3 years ago and just finished the last room a couple of months ago. We went the needle nose plier route when pulling out the staples…definitely time consuming but didn’t take too much brain power. Luckily we do have hardwoods underneath, just have to get them all refinished since the previous owners got paint all over them in all three bedrooms!! A homeowners work is never done, especially when you buy a fixer upper!
Dina says
This post made me laugh so hard. I went through this exact process helping my sister and brother-in-law remove carpeting in their first house about 8 years ago. Except their carpet was right on top of hardwood that they were restoring, so no floor scraper.. we had to pull out aaaalll those staples one by one! My hand was useless for a week after that. Then we had to sand it all down and stain it. The truly terrible part is that 3 months later, my sister decided that she wanted carpeting again, so they covered up all that hard work! I still use this incident as leverage against my sister when I need her help with something (“remember that time 8 years ago when I pulled 5,893,427 staples out of your floor, just to have you cover it up with carpet again 3 months later?”).
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my! Well, at least you got a good story out of it…
-John
Dina says
Also, did you take any pleasure in the irony that despite all those staples, the carpet was still loose and lumpy? Go figure, right?!
shannon says
We are about 1/2 way through our house and yard renovation. Pulling staples was the worst job to date. They never end!! Just wanted to give you a heads up. I have 3 chihuahuas and I installed hardwood in my entire house. The mistake that I made was to not put a carpet runner on the stairs. The chihuahuas can’t seem to grip the wood and we had a couple of scary falls(no injuries). I now carry them up to bed until I can decide on a carpet runner.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh no! Thanks for the tip Shannon! Burger frequents a few houses with wood stairs and seems to do ok, but we’ll have to keep an eye out!
xo
s
Ann says
Seeing the mess and hard work brings back memories! The carpet tacks/staples… What a nightmare, haha. Looks like you are having fun and I am looking forward to following your progress. How can I be so excited? This isn’t even my house!
Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) says
So exciting seeing you working on the new house. Love this and can’t wait to see the hardwood flooring go down. I so agree about hardwoods being the best choice. I have them throughout my whole home except for two rooms and hope to get the other two done some day. I know you’re so glad you can do this prior to moving in. Love following the progress!
Jules says
I’m so curious if you are going to pick dark or light hardwood floors! I’ve heard a lot of negatives about dark floors being hard to keep clean and showing scratches easily. You guys are pretty practical and realistic. Thoughts? We just bought a house very similar to your new house so I’m so excited to see what you have planned.
YoungHouseLove says
We’ll share a post all about it tomorrow or the next day (lots of options! so hard to choose!).
xo
s
Angie says
I am! I woke up this morning, went to get my daughter, and realized the toilet flooded. And the wall it shares with her room was soaked. We used the carpet cleaner to suck up the water, fixed the toilet, and started ripping up carpet. We pulled up just the section that was wet for now. Her furniture is very large and very heavy. When we decide what we’re doing to the floor we will move the furniture out and rip up the rest. Luckily, our town offers bulk trash pick up. Every 2 weeks we can put large things from lumber, carpet, tree trimmings out for pickup.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my gosh! What a day! Good luck with everything Angie!
xo
s
Erica says
Staples are my nemesis! I never want to remove carpet again! When I bought my house, it had old carpet from the late 70’s/early 80’s. It was dirty, stained, and had holes in it, much like yours. My best friend and I pulled it up and carried it outside, then we scraped the padding off the floor. Gross. There were staples like every inch or two- I decided that the person who put the carpet down needed to be smacked over the head with the staple gun. I have a picture of my mom removing all those staples! I’m so glad that’s over with! Now I have refinished the beautiful hardwoods underneath- I’m just sad you guys weren’t that lucky! I can’t wait to see what you picked out for your floors though!
Dani says
Yerp. We’ve just done all of this. Only our underlay wasnt all nice in one piece – it was from the 60s and had totally deteriorated so it was flakey and sticky. If you knelt on it you’d come up with a patch stuck to your knee…It was so gross! (Also, lesson #1 – don’t kneel on a tack strip.) Our strips were horrible too, and we could only get up about a 1 inch length at a time so it actually took DAYS to get them all up through the house. The nails we pulled up with the claw on a hammer.
RE disposing of the carpet – have you thought about taking some to a local shelter? They use carpet to line the dog/cat cages (at least here in Australia they do!) so are usually happy to take donations of old stuff.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s such a sweet idea Dani!
xo
s
MonaLee says
Did I miss the big announcement? Sherry you look sooo pregnant and beaming. Congrats!
YoungHouseLove says
Uh oh, I’m actually not expecting (maybe I should throw that sweater away!). But here’s a post about that whole dealio if it helps: https://www.younghouselove.com/2013/03/state-of-the-uterus-address-2013/
xo
s
SunshineGal85 says
You can’t be serious! She doesn’t look pregnant at all, but even if she was, it’s incredibly rude to say such a thing until you know for sure. Who has ever, even when they’re as beautiful as Sherry, looked “beaming” while pulling up 30-year-old stained carpet?
Jamie says
OMG. No you do not. I was actually thinking reading this post how skinny-mini you are.
Jennie says
Are you kidding me? This is a ridiculous comment. Why would anyone say this to anyone, ever? Sherry, do not throw out your sweater, it’s very flattering.
Jessica says
This person is obviously being mean for some reason. I mean, who would say such a thing??
Jess says
This is obviously a troll. Don’t let them through next time!
Elizabeth says
MonaLee has obviously never been pregnant. I know the last thing you would have caught me doing when I was pregnant would be ripping up carpet. You look great Sherry, people are crazy.
reny says
my back aches just by reading this post. ;) (no, really. my back is currently out due to a knee injury). but i do love seeing what your new house would look like. exciting exciting.
Kristi @ Addicted 2 Decorating says
It’s amazing what a difference that made! Great job, y’all!
I took the carpet up in our condo by myself. It was so difficult rolling up all that carpet. Since I was working by myself, I HAD to cut the carpet up before rolling to be able to carry it out. And ours was nailed into concrete. No wood subfloors here. I never could get some of the nails out, and the ones that did come out generally left a big gouge in the concrete. Definitely not a fun job.
YoungHouseLove says
Sounds horrible!
xo
s
Jamie says
Tearing up the carpet was one of the first things we did too!! And we had a concrete floor that looked BETTER than the carpet too! Luckily we also had a lot of hardwood underneath!
YoungHouseLove says
So lucky!
xo
s
Sayward says
As soon as I saw you mention SPRAYING the trim in the comments I had two simultaneous thoughts:
1. Sweet Jesus I’m so glad that Sherry’s hand/back/neck/body/whatever will be spared the grueling, decade long process of covering all that blue trim with 87 coats of Kilz.
2. I’ll probably get befores and afters in one amazing post!
YoungHouseLove says
Wahooooooooooo!
xo
s
Lindsay M says
Remodeling (every.single.room) in my Grandmas (new) 1957 ranch. Ripped up ALL the carpet yesterday and pulled up the thousands of nails and staples today. Talk about a tedious task! Luckily it has the original hardwoods! Can’t wait to see your progress! I have a similar picture of Grandmas garage, just add some 80’s vertical blinds ;-)
Nicole says
It’s amazing how bright the areas look now without the dingy carpet. .. or maybe it’s just the time of day you took the pictures!?… ahh..I’ll go with the no carpet is making the rooms brighter haha! very nice!
Natalie says
Are you worried about the noise? I am thinking of putting carpet down in the upstairs rooms because I dont want to hear the kids noisey shoes clomping around up there as it is right above the living room.
For the same reason I want to have a strip of carpet running down the centre of the stairs. (And to soften the crash landings the kids will have if the fall down the stairs)
YoungHouseLove says
There are great underlayments you can use to dampen noise and absorb sound, and when they’re mixed with area rugs in a no-shoes household it’s usually not too bad (we both grew up in houses with two stories and no-shoes policies :)
xo
s
Natalie says
Brrr… our house is too cold for no shoes.
I am sure the allure of using area rugs is a big drawcard for you too. You have awesome ones over there in the USA.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, I love me some area rugs! And some fuzzy socks in the winter :)
xo
s
Elizabeth says
We are tackling bedroom carpeting next weekend (well my husband is – I’m pregnant and the carpet is so old he fears the dusty toxins will be ‘bad for baby’ – I’m happy to pass).
We ripped up the carpets in the rest of the house ages ago (hardwood floors – yay) and it took us over a week to get the staples out of the floors. So I’m expecting the bedrooms to be the same.
Look forward to seeing the new floors go into your new place!
Heather says
It looks so much better already! When my parents re-carpeted the dining room in my childhood home, there were lots of staples, and we removed them with pliers because we didn’t know any better! So I am stoked to learn about the floor scraper. I am ALSO stoked that there are things to do with old carpet besides putting it in a landfill (thanks, YHL readers!). This is just a post full of win!
becca bermingham says
How long til you start painting that blue trim?! ;) Can’t wait to see the floors you guys decide on.
YoungHouseLove says
I’m dying to get on that!!
xo
s
Julie E. says
The *first* think we did in our old “new to us” house was pull up the carpet. I must have breathed in like 20 years of the previous owners. I recommend a face mask (paper is fine) since the padding can be so old that it disintegrates (that’s what we encountered. Grossies!).
We still have a linen closet that has part of the carpet in it and a tack strip left at the top of our stairs. It’s on my dude get on it list. Maybe I’ll get to it before we celebrate our first year in this house in August.
Can’t wait to see the new flooring!
Julie E. says
*thing* not *think* Must be all those previous owner fumes clouding my brain…
YoungHouseLove says
Great tip about the mask! It definitely was so gross!
xo
s
Jennine W. says
This has been my he** lately. I don’t know how you guys get so much done in so little time. I got so exhausted pulling staples I just pounded them in since we are putting underlayment down over the (very unlevel) subfloor. My husband and I have been working on the floor in the living room for three days and I am drop dead tired! We still have the whole house to do and don’t know if my body can handle it!(Wuss over here)Is there a DIY fitness training camp somewhere?
KarenH says
Oh man. I just finished pulling up the last of the carpeting in my itty bitty house. I have to say, I’m very impressed that you left the pieces whole. I was working alone, so I cut the carpeting into 4 feet (ish) wide strips, rolled them up and tied them with jute twine (because that’s what I had–jute has no magical properties that I know of :D) and tossed them out of the nearest window. The padding I rolled up and crammed imto leaf and lawn bags and then they got the same window treatment.
The tack strips and staples (do carpet installer get paid per staple or what??????) went into a leftover box I had from a set of storage shelves in the basement. (and then all that stuff got a ride in the car to the dump–$6 per load, it was a bargain except for the smell but I treated myself to Starbucks as a consolation.
I do have hardwoods in the house, but the front half of the house (all the common living space) has to be refinished. Still, I much prefer the hardwoods.
And I used a flat head screwdriver to get underneath each staple and pull up. About 70% of the staples came completely out using that method. The other 30% would only come out on one side so I used vice grips to yank it out the rest of the way.
Tracy says
Hi, we did this same thing when we bought our house, just a suggestion for you, it is so much easier to have your painting done before having new floors installed. Just sayin good luck with the new/old house!
Autumn Beach says
Oh my. What a J-O-B! It’s usually projects like this that make me want to bail on the whole DIY thing. But I’m sure you guys gain SO much satisfaction from doing it yourselves. In fact, I bet that “oh happy day” photo of Clara totally sums up your feelings whenever you look at those floors. (I love that photo, by the way.) And the floors DO look SO much better already! Way to GO!
Tara says
You could always donate the grody carpet to a local pet shelter? I know our local SPCA uses it in the kennels/cattery to provide a bit of softness and warmth!
Also depending on the type of carpet, look into recycling it. I’m sure you guys will-you’re good like that, but just to bring it to mind in case you have a million other things on the brain!
PS Happy Birthday to the Clara-bean :)
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the suggestion Tara!
-John
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the suggestion, Tara!
-John
Rene says
It looks so much better already! The one time I pulled up carpet it was in a room where the previous owners had kept animals that urinated all over the carpet. It was the single nastiest house project I’ve ever done. Your subflooring looks nice and unblemished but I wanted to post for other readers that if you do have pet stains on your subflooring you’ll want to paint over them with an oil based sealant before laying down new flooring. This will keep the urine smell from seeping up through the new floor. I guess this would probably work for most biological stains so if you got a great deal on your house because someone got murdered there I guess this would work too? Might still want to phone for a spiritual cleansing, though.
Naomi says
Wow lots of hard work but it looks so much better already. Your house has lots of great natural light. Can’t wait for what’s coming.
Kit says
Hi J&S – congrats on the new house and pending house sale.
We had new hardwood floors installed in our house upon purchase. We installed in every room, bathrooms, kitchen, closets, everywhere – so much easier to clean. We had all of the baseboard removed as we were to replace. I see in pics you still have baseboard in. The removal of baseboard allows for variance in new floor and non-plumb walls to be hidden under the new baseboard. Are you thinking of removing and reinstalling existing? Removing and replacing?
Good luck. Kit
YoungHouseLove says
We’re hoping to keep the baseboard in, but will install some quarter round to hopefully do what you describe.
-John
Stefanie says
You don’t need to publish this comment, it’s just a question for you. I get why you want to manually approve all comments. But so many of these comments say the same things over and over again, probably because they don’t realize the question has already been asked (because it hasn’t been posted yet). And then you have to respond to the same question with the same answer, over and over again.
Since work-life balance has always been one of your goals, wouldn’t using the WordPress spam filter to monitor the comments and post them save you so much time? And then you wouldn’t have to read 100 questions all asking if you were going to paint the trim before putting down the floors?
YoungHouseLove says
We actually get that question a lot! The WordPress spam filter misses a lot of spam for us (perhaps since we usually get around 1000 comments a day?) so sometimes an X-rated spam comment will get through the filter somehow (this actually happens once every few days) so if we’re not holding them all in moderation, well, everyone would get an eyeful. We also like to chat with you guys. This is a conversation for us, it’s not us talking at people – we like to talk to people and hear back from them. We actually think responding to questions is a big part of what got us here (and it’s the fun part for us!). It only takes a second to cut and paste the same response if a question comes up a lot. And especially if there are nearly 800 comments, expecting people to scroll through them all to find the one answer to their question might not work for a lot of our readers :)
xo
s
Béa says
Although we hated the dark blue aged carpet we had in our house when we bought it, we used it upside down with the foam underlayer to protect the subfloor in the rooms when replastering/repainting them.
Mind you, the house was built in the 1920s meaning the subfloor consists of large and spaced planks on top of beams and straw underneath…
Plus, life in a city in the NL =limited space, you use one room as a workshop while doing another one!
And we didn’t have to suffer the smell factor!
Good luck guys!
Elisha @ Lovelishares says
Wow! That looks like a massive job you guys were so brave to do it yourselves, i would have been to chicken and called the professionals. I’m excited to see the finished hardwood :)
Audrey S. says
I work at our local public library and were are in the process of remodeling our Children’s Room. My supervisor commented yesterday how “they” had lost the carpet so it did not get delivered when it was supposed to be installed. I got a good laugh out of that. How do you lose a giant roll of carpet?
YoungHouseLove says
Oh no!
-John
Claire @ Claire K Creations says
Hmm very interesting! Our new house has carpet everywhere but the bathrooms & kitchen so we’ll definitely be ripping it up some time in the future. What a difference it made already!
Erin says
Omg I’m having nightmares! I had to do this in our current and previous houses. Pepto pink, eggplant, teal and bright blue…we were so glad to see it all go but it was disgusting and tedious removing staples. Glad you can check that nasty job off your todo list.
Peggy McKee says
Long handled staple remover looks great.
My personal preference: Shark Grip Pry Bar. Very strong but very thin curved blade works great. I believe it’s a Japanese design.
Jenifer says
Maybe this question has already been asked but I didn’t read all the comments ;)
Will you start painting before you lay new flooring?
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, we’d love to at least spray the trim!
xo
s
lynda says
Looks a lot better without that carpet, right? BTW, we live in Richmond and have enough Brazilian teak flooring left over to do a small room – we put it in our kitchen at my husband’s insistence. It is really nice, but I don’t think you could put it in yourself – it is extremely hard wood. We had 5 flights of stairs and two floors of carpet that had to be ripped up. Yes, thousands of staples — even on the stair treads there were hundreds of staples.
Megan says
When I saw the Title of this post I thought for sure you were going to do a Fresh Prince of Bel Air Parody “Yo Home Smell Ya Later..”
YoungHouseLove says
Hahaha, how did I miss that?!
Now I’ll be singing that all day…
xo
s
Lyndy says
After ripping out carpet in three houses, I had NEVER seen the floor scraper! Thanks – no more pliers.
Tambi says
I have also pulled up old nasty carpet from houses we have renovated, it’s a big yucky job but so worth it. My little suggestion is if you know what color you want in the rooms, to paint before you install hardwoods. It’s Soooo much easier to paint over subfloor. Just a thought. I love your blog. You both do a great job. Thank you for sharing!
Jenn B. says
What amazing timing! We’re pulling carpet out of our downstairs on Thursday. Thanks so much for the video with all the tips!