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:
Anesha says
Man, the house looks better already!
Now that the carpet is up, do you think ya’ll will paint before you put the hardwoods down? You could make for some quick paining of the blue trim with one of those spray gun things. I think it’d save tons of time since you wouldn’t have to cover the subfloor.
Can’t wait to see what ya’ll do next!
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, we’d love to paint at least the trim!
xo
s
Yvonne @ Dress This Nest says
Wow! That looks like a TON of work. I appreciate my hardwood floors SO much more after seeing this. Great job!
Wendy says
I could have written this post! We just ripped up all of the carpet on the first floor of our house. The worst were the staples that were so deep down that I had to get this flat piece of metal and/or a screwdriver to drive them up before I could yank em out with pliers. My husband dealt with the tack strips while I did the staples. We do have hardwoods underneath so our next step is finding someone to come and refinish those. We also have carpet in the upstairs (no hardwood underneath there)…but I am thinking about replacing it with new carpet rather than doing more hardwood (our dog sheds). I’m not going to tackle that this year though!
Holly says
We recently pulled up the carpet in the bedrooms of our new house to expose the hardwood and it was NASTTYYYY. After that experience I don’t know if I could ever handle having carpet again. Before pulling it out I listed it for free on Craigslist(since it was still in fair shape)and almost instantly had two people who wanted it. Some guy put it in his man cave, I think. I just hope he cleaned it….
Steph Nelson says
It cracks me up that you have more comments on ripping up carpet than you do about selling your old house! Shows how excited I guess we are for a new house and new projects and new scenery. :)
I’d be spraying all that trim too if possible. And the ceilings.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, it’s true about comments! We never can predict what posts will be the ones that go crazy!
xo
s
Waterlooheather says
Are you guys going to paint the trim and doors while you just have subfloors or are you planning to replace it all anyway?
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, we’d love to.
xo
s
Cara says
Is that old telephone wires along your baseboards? We have that in one of our bedrooms upstairs, and are planning on striiping the woodwork this summer (fun fun!) Do you know if you can just rip it out? Our phone runs though our cable company, not telephone company.
YoungHouseLove says
We have the same thing (cable phone, etc) but we’re not sure if they’re still live (even if they’re old they could still have power?) so we’ll have to check it out before removing them. They’ll be going for sure though!
xo
s
Amber says
My house had a ridiculous number of phone jacks. My husband tore out all the phone lines early on. He’s a web developer, btw, so not normally a handyman. Our phone line entered the house in the basement and ran from there to the first floor jacks. It also ran up around our chimney to the attic and down from the attic into the 2nd floor bedrooms.
If you’re worried about live wires, just find where it enters the house and disconnect there. I think the only way you’d get into trouble trying to pull the wires out is if they were installed while the house was being built, because in that case they might be tacked to the studs. Ours came out pretty easily, not tacked in. Some pieces we couldn’t pull out so we left them in the wall and patched over. They’re not hooked up to anything so no worries there.
My husband also decided he wanted to wire the house with ethernet cable, so he ended up using some of the old telephone wires as runner cables to install the ethernet. By that I mean he tied the telephone wire to the ethernet cable, then yanked the telephone wire out of the wall from the attic or basement which then pulled the ethernet cable into the wall where he wanted it to run. It may seem a bit silly to wire for ethernet when wireless is so easy, but it’s nice to be able to put the router in any room and you get faster speeds when you’re plugged in too.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip Amber!
xo
s
Charise says
Oh man, these pictures are giving me PTSD. We pulled up laminate flooring, its underlayment, the original vinyl sheeting, and the plywood below it in various places in the house. There were SO many staples (and much old glue) to deal with – it took floor scrapers, pry bars, needle-nosed pliers, and a small sledge hammer to deal with all of them. Days of hand-cramping, back-aching work. Such a good feeling to be done with that task, right?
YoungHouseLove says
Yes!!
xo
s
Melanie P says
Will you be painting the trim and walls before you put down the new floors? It makes your life so much easier!
YoungHouseLove says
You can scroll back just a few comments to see that answer :)
xo
s
Kim H says
Argh… having flashbacks of our second to last house, which was only 5 years old when we bought it, so the carpet wasn’t disgusting and smelly, at least. I did have a bajillion staples though. The carpet was in good condition, but my husband and I LOVE hardwood, so out the carpet went. We just purchased a new house (this one 3 yrs old) and will be ripping up the carpet in the master bedroom. I’ll remember you floor scraper trick!
Lee says
Holy MOLY! Ya’ll are already at work on the new house!
I can’t wait to see the new floors and how you guys do it!
This inspires and encourages me because i have a livingroom and a hall to rip carpet. In our case there’s antique oak hardwoods but won’t know the condition till carpet’s out.
Young House Love is always the first email i read :)
Kayla says
Welcome to our world! We have “demo’d” our downstairs and the carpet was the easiest! We ripped up carpet, old hardwoods that we couldn’t match and tile in the kitchen in hopes of laying hardwood floors. We have been living for 3 weeks on plywood! One project we did that turned into a LOT more work than expected but is coming along beautifully—-we pulled the carpet from our stairs and refinished the wood. Are you goint to do this as well? LOVE your blog. Thanks for sharing! -K
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, we’d love to do that!
xo
s
Anne says
When I first read that y’all bought your new house, I smiled so big, and seriously felt like I was hearing exciting news about a real friend. :) Congratulations!
Unfortunately, I intimately know how awful ripping up carpet can be. I’ve only ever used needle nose pliers and flat head screw drivers to painstakingly pull up MILLIONS of staples because of hardwood floors, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. It’s so wonderful to free hardwoods from their captivity, but I am super excited to see y’all lay your own hardwoods. That’s really ambitious and cool! So, you’re lucky you could whip out the scraper on the subfloors.
One time I was helping a friend rip up the carpet in one small bedroom of her house, and it took us half the day. Seriously, probably over 4 hours. We kept laugh/crying (we were extremely punch drunk after a couple of hours) about imaging the people installing the pepto bismal pink carpet, going wild with staple gun power- maniacally stapling fifty times where one or two staples would’ve sufficed.
Thanks for sharing your adventures with us!
:)
Anne
Octavia says
I seriously just took up the carpet in my office and came to your site and saw that you did the same thing! The only difference was that we live in Texas and have concrete so now we have lots of lovely “potholes” in our floor that we have to fix.
Hanna says
Hehe. This is already looking like my renovation (although I have only done one room so far)!
http://vorpaks.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-kids-bedroom-makeover-during.html
I wish I had taken more pictures of the tacking and staple removal because that really did take about 3 hours! I removed mine by popping a screwdriver under each one and prying it up. And then repeating about a billion times.
The tacking strip I got up the same way you did, using a crowbar and a hammer under the crowbar for leverage. I was actually better at this than my husband, since he could apply so much more brute force. The tacking he did splintered all over the place and I had to go back and pry the nails out separately. I, who have no brute force whatsoever, could only apply slow and steady pressure. It took longer, but usually the tacking came up in one piece, pulling the nails with it.
I am so glad to see the subfloor looks pretty darn good! I was owrried about what you would find under there, since the carpets seemed so beat up and possibly water-damaged. Can’t wait to see the hardwoods you picked!
Marci says
You’ve mentioned and documented the blue molding several times, but it still kills me every time I see it. Who does such a thing? Oh the 80s were such a strange time.
I’m so excited for your new adventure. Sadly my husband isn’t because it’s only going to cause him more work when I get inspired by you guys!
Marci
Hanna says
I think it is part of the “country” style from back then? Now when we think country-style we think of modern-country, which is sort of like country without the duckling wallpaper, scalloping, and… blue trim. :) I could be wrong though, and it is some kind of colonial thing.
molly @ still being molly says
my husband actually just did this EXACT thing this weekend. we are working on our nursery and he stripped and tore up all the old DISGUSTING carpet – and yeah, those tack strips and staples are the WORST. you guys are brave for doing an entire upstairs! that must have taken forever.
Korie says
Oh this is so de ja vu!!! We did the exact same thing with our upstairs…. Ripped out 30 yr old smelly, dingy carpet. We had a wider plank oak installed ( 3& 1/4 in) and i love them!! And oh how I wish I could somehow share the before pic of our stairs with you…complete with red wine colored carpet. Sherry, I bet you are dying to paint all that blue trim. Lol!! Can’t wait to see how it looks once the new floors are in.
Leanne says
We removed our carpeting in several rooms a few years ago and the floor boards were badly stained from cats and dogs. We actually had to replace some floor boards and were told to treat the whole flooring with a bleach solution and Kilz to totally remove the bad odor. Hope you didn’t have this problem.
YoungHouseLove says
Thankfully it all looks/smells good now that the carpet’s gone!
xo
s
Trina says
Wow!! Serious hard work there but it looks SOOO much better already! Its amazing how much brighter your rooms look without that dingy carpet. Can’t wait to see your continued progress!!
Kari says
have you guys thought about priming & painting all the trim before you install flooring so you don’t have to drop cloth everything? I love a bare floor. There is something very ‘new construction all my options are open’ about it :) My family always wrote letters on the floor before we laid new flooring like a time capsule for people who remodeled after us. Have fun with your floors!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, check out the comments for that info. It’s a common question :)
xo
s
John says
Perhaps you answered this, but do you have an offset at the top of the stair to make the wood floor flush?
YoungHouseLove says
We’ll just be adding a new stair nose over the existing one I think, but I’m not 100% sure until we get there!
xo
s
Ro says
Oh how you tearing out that carpet brought back memories. We bought our home we knew it hardwood on main floor. Little did we no not only regular type carpet on top but ——–what we found underneath was worse. Their was indoor outdoor glued to the hardwood. What a mess. The living room was ruined by dog pee. We finally got that all done. Oh forgot every room in house had carpet ( 2 layers ) even baths.
We then decided to tackle the carpet in basement . Much easier. No more carpet in house at all. Yeah. We put a wood looking vinyl on floor. ( had floor put in) but we tore the carpet out. No more carpet any where in house.
So when I see what you were doing it brought memories.
Erin from Oklahoma says
Great job! Those floor scrapers also come in handy if you ever have an icy driveway/sidewalk. Our scraper gets used outside more often than inside.
Nicole says
Not sure if someone already mentioned this (and its a little late now anyway) but next time just drop your rolled up carpet out the window…much easier! If the carpet is really big pieces it will probably reach all the way to the ground, so you can gently drop it…not like chucking it out the window or anything. Gotta be easier than lugging it down the stairs! :)
YoungHouseLove says
That sounds like fun!
xo
s
Meg Sluyter says
Oh those staples, I SO WISH you guys had done this like 3 weeks ago. I used a flat head screw driver to pull up all of them in 2 rooms and it took me almost 2 days. My knees where black and blue for a week!
Also, what/how are you disposing of the old carpet? We have the above mentioned 2 rooms worth and have been tearing it up in pieces and putting it out with the garbage but it seems like that option will take a year to get it all gone. There has to be a better way!
Can’t wait to see the new floors too :).
Natalie says
Well, this brought back memories! We pulled up icky carpeting in our house last year. One thing we LOVED was this rounded head “rocking” plier for pulling up the staples. (You would think that if I loved it so much, I would know what it’s called :)) Can’t wait to see the hardwood!
deb says
This post brings back so many memories!
When we moved into our 1920 bungalow 3 years ago, it was filled with 13+ year-old awful blue carpet. Ripping it up was the first thing we did. Unfortunately, some of the carpet was in such bad shape that it ripped apart and was not rollable.
We stored it on the front porch for a few days where it got soaked with rain. We couldn’t believe how heavy it got!
But we were blessed with gorgeous old hardwood from 1920 that we refinished!
Jasmin says
Love this post! We have carpet upstairs and because of allergies, it needs to go. I noticed that your stairs have wood flooring and a carpet stair runner. Will you be replacing the carpet? I have complete carpet and i feel I’m defeating the purpose of removing carpet if its hardwood underneath it when I have upstairs and downstairs hardwood..
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we’d love to rip that up since we peeked and the hardwoods go right under it :)
xo
s
Amber says
So exciting that you get to pick out new flooring for your whole upstairs! I don’t know if your new house has the same squeaks and creaks as my 34 year old house, but I would highly recommend checking for squeaks before you lay your new floors down. Best to secure any loose subfloor now while you can. Whoever nailed my subfloor didn’t use the right kind of nails and it seems all the nail heads rusted and popped off. Squeaks everywhere.
Also, I recently learned that you can use cork as an underlayment for your hardwood for noise reduction and insulation, which could be good for a second floor. Might be worth looking into. (:
YoungHouseLove says
Great tips Amber!
xo
s
Ginny says
My husband and I have removed our share of carpet during our married life. Those tack strips and all the staples are enough to make one go crazy, especially when you have to sit on the floor and pull up the staples one by one by one . . . Glad you found a solution to the problem! Good thing you have that new, large garage for all that awful carpet!
Riss says
WOW! It looks a hundred times better already! Thanks for the video too. It is instructional without making the process seem daunting. :-)
John says
Dude. We have the same mini-crowbar!
Ah, Home Depot.
Lane says
We are mid carpet removal over here. Terrazzo floors underneath though so none of those pesky staples to deal with just concrete tack strips. Our house smelled so much better after removing most of that old nasty carpet.
Criss says
Typo alert! “ares” should be “areas” “In some ares there was so…”
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Criss! All fixed!
xo
s
Tall Tee says
Dude…was that carpet REALLY once cream-colored? Ka-dang!
Sassafras says
Love the progress…I think maybe you’re missing some of the other folks points, just perhaps…
Cut the carpet into thinner strips BEFORE/AS you roll it up. Easier to roll, and then also to get down the stairs.
Apart from the stairs you aren’t having to manhandle a ginourmous tootsie roll in the room either.
Can’t wait to see how your updating the house rolls along! Love the light in that big room.
YoungHouseLove says
We actually tried cutting it into strips before we rolled and it was nearly impossible (needed more slack and a way to hold it, which happened as/after we rolled – so that became our method :)
xo
s
Jenn Jackson says
This was such a huge job!!! *Round of applause* We just found real hardwood in our living room. We decided to pull up the carpet and let me tell you it was very hard. You guys make it look so easy. Carrying it out of the room is exhausting to say the least. But thank you for all of the tips! :D We will continue checking back for updates and wonderful tips!
Annelies says
I’ve been on holiday for the past two weeks and just before I left you posted about buying the new house. I’m so excited for you and now I read you have already sold the current house and started working in the new house! Congratulations! I’m so happy how things worked out for you and that we can follow you in this adventure. I totally understand why you kept it a secret all this time, but man you guys have been busy the past months! I really look forward to following all the things you will do in this new house as it looks great. And I only found out about your blog last summer so eventhough I loved seeing how beautifully your current house turned out, I can’t wait to see how you’ll transform this house from sratch. Keep up with the good work and thanks for sharing all this of your life with us !
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks so much Annelies! You’re so sweet!
xo
s
Christina says
Nice job. When I bought my condo I needed to replace a lot of the carpet too, and I was very fortunate that my boyfriend and his twin brother volunteered to take out all the staples for me. They are self proclaimed “demo only” guys, as in they can bust stuff up but can’t build anything or decorate, haha. That’s alright, I’ll handle the decorating! :)
YoungHouseLove says
That’s awesome!
xo
s
Dana says
ugh, i hear ya! we had to remove carpet, pad, tack strips from our 900 sqft basement after it flooded. so much annoyance from “1” activity!
Rebecca says
From other posts I see that you remove the baseboards before installing your hardwoods, but if I’m not going to be painting the baseboards would it be easier to remove them first thing, prior to carpet removal? Also, do you have any tips for removing tile? Our house has carpet in the bedrooms and living room, tile in the bathrooms, foyer, and kitchen, and I would love the put down hardwoord flooring throughout but save the tile in the bathrooms and kitchen. However, I’m afraid once I started to remove the tile, it would be hard to salvage certain areas. I noticed that you have a post about a bathroom renovation, so I’ll check that out! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your blog! <3
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, I would try to either pop them off before you rip up the carpet or right after (since it might be easier once it’s up). Good luck Rebecca!
xo
s
Kate says
I just wanted to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for posting about the floor scraper! I never would have known it existed, but it was a HUGE help in our ability to remove our living room and hallway carpet a couple months ago. It worked even better than I expected. It also has come in handy scraping ice off the driveway and sidewalks (it was another “suggested use” on the label, and it works!). Thank you!
YoungHouseLove says
So glad Kate!
xo
s