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:
Barbara says
We did that last year when we bought our house – brutal work! One thing that did save us though was being able to paint all our trim with a sprayer since their was no flooring yet! We had dark brown trim and it would have taken FOREVER and not looked so great if it had all been painted by hand.
Think of it as a trade-off… back breaking work on the carpet removal, but now the trim painting won’t be back breaking (if you do it with a sprayer which I am guessing you will do before putting down the new floors right?)!
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, we’d love to spray all of the trim before laying the new floors :)
xo
s
CHRISTINE says
Recycle that carpet! Obviously that carpet is old, but you could see if a carpet recycler will take it. I work for a flooring company and we recycle all the carpet that we take up. Even if it is not fully recyclable, it might be down-cyclable (made into water bottles instead of new carpet. Carpet is one of the largest item in landfills today, so it would be awesome if you could make it into something new! If you call a local flooring company, they might have the name of a recycler.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip Christine! We had never heard about carpet recycling until today!
xo
s
Jamie says
Just ripped up some nasty carpet in the master reno we are working on. Thankfully for some odd reason the old owners opted for carpet tape to hold the padding down instead of staples in 90% of the room! I just had to cut it into smaller than 5′ rolls and my garbage took the gross carpet away, along with all the awful paneling we removed!
Amy K says
Are you guys going to reinforce the sub-floors with screws along the staple lines?
We did that before putting in new flooring in our kitchen and it made a HUGE difference. The kitchen floor feels SOLID, and there’s no squeaking at all. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Smart! Love that idea Amy!
xo
s
Roger Balwinski says
Aah carpet removal, what fun. As another person said it would have been best to pre-cut the carpet into 4′ wide pieces before pulling it up. Much easier to handle, and with a quick wrap of duct tape, most garbage companies will pick it up curbside (usually a limit on rolls per week). Same goes for the pad. They make a blade that is perfect for cutting carpet on the floor, it sort of has a boomerang shaped handle.
And its done now, but a hammer/screw driver seems to be the easiest way to get the tack strip up. Even new tack strip tends to splinter.
YoungHouseLove says
Great tips Roger!
xo
s
Jen M says
Wowza! First let me say that looks like a ton of work! Second, i’ve never in my life sat through a 5 minute video on how to remove carpet until now. I had no idea it was so interesting! :) Can’t wait to see your progress on this house!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Jen! John knows how to work a wet vac. Ha!
xo
s
Sarah C says
So I got rear-ended this morning (I drive through Old Town Alexandria to get to work) stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic- but seeing a post about work on your new house got me all excited! I really couldn’t wait for your guys to tackle this house- I’m learning a lesson in patience too by not seeing it all renovated at once, as much as I want it to be lol!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh no! So sorry Sarah! Glad you’re ok!
xo
s
Lesley says
At least you didn’t have to pull carpeting out of the bathroom. My parents bought a new house after all the chicks had left the nest and it required a complete overhaul of kitchen, floors, bathrooms, etc. There was old, disgustingly stained green carpet in the bathroom. And to this day I wonder how I landed the honor of ripping that out for them…all by myself (I think everyone else was painting in another room). So gross. Mold. Water stains around the toilet. I shudder at the memory!
YoungHouseLove says
We actually have carpet in the master bathroom nook, but since we’ll tile that down the line it might stay for a hot second or two (just so we don’t have to worry about Clara stepping on staples or anything). I’m going to try not to think about what’s in that carpet….
xo
s
Amanda T. says
Gah! I’m so excited for hardwoods! After living with carpet my whole life and having pets I’m really hoping my next house will have some hardwoods. :)
Cindy @ The Flipping Couple says
Oh man. We had wall-to-wall carpet throughout our house and we started yanking it out the day we closed! Fortunately, we DID have hardwood underneath. UNfortunately that meant we had to pull every single staple out by hand…..over 1500 sq feet of staples. I definitely did have blisters (lots of them!) but the gorgeous refinished hardwood floors were worth it!
Jocelyn says
I’ve done my share of carpet removal, I know what a dirty, nasty job it is, but oh, the satisfaction when you see an immediate difference!
I can put carpet in my regular trash pickup. It has to be cut into 4 foot wide pieces and tied or taped. Check into you local restrictions. You may be able to save the cost of a Bagster and removal.
jenn aka the picky girl says
Yes! We are getting ready to put my grandmother’s house on the market and removed the horrible carpeting in her house. It was so much gross, gross work – years of pets, former owners, etc. – and it was rough. The tack strips were rotted, but the nails to hold them down were really tough. Plus, they glued the carpet pad to some pretty amazingly awful 60s lineoleum, and that carpet pad didn’t roll. It came off in chunks. Terrible. We used a Bagster (which I first learned of from you guys!), and it was perfect. I don’t want to do that again any time soon, though.
Courtney says
Yesssss!!!! First post on updating the new house makes me soooo happy!
Jdubb says
O.M.G. Is there anything you guys can’t do!!?! Y’all are as amazing as ever and are my total inspiration!! Thanks so much for sharing and I’m totally excited for you guys and your new place.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Jdubb! You’re so sweet.
xo
s
Taya says
Been there, done that! We had to do the stairs though, too! When we bought our town house a year and a half ago, the upstairs had disgusting carpeting! Needless to say it was one of the first things to go…. We used some flat head screw drivers to help get out the staples… I wish we had known about the scraper though, because I totally took a screw driver to the face during the process. Luckily it missed my eye!
Good job, Petersiks! Rock on!
JenM says
Have you two ever used FreeCycle? It’s basically just a message board where you can get rid of your unwanted stuff-you just can’t charge for it. You would be AMAZED at what people are willing to take off your hands for free. It might be an alternative for paying to take away that carpet?
Also, when I was 13 I ripped up the ugly pea green carpet in my bedroom on a whim- I still have nightmares about those tack strips and staples….so many staples…
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we love Freecycle! That’s a great idea!
xo
s
Leslie C says
I’m not sure if anyone else has asked, but are y’all planning on painting all of the trim before the new flooring goes in?! I mean, I know how awesome that country blue trim is and all, but……. Haha
YoungHouseLove says
We’re pretty well versed in painting walls with wood flooring on the ground already (that was pretty much the story of our first and current house) but we’d love to spray all that blue and mauve trim while the flooring is up, then lay the floors, and eventually paint the walls when we’re sure what colors we want to go with :)
xo
s
Teresa @ wherelovemeetslife says
I was wondering the same thing… and after seeing Mr. Bower using a paint sprayer that seems a logical way to tackle so much painting at once… can’t wait to see waht you guys decide on.
Jessica says
Great job! This brings back (un)fun memories of when we pulled out carpet when I was 8 months pregnant! On a whim I decided we needed new carpet before the baby arrived and of course the DIY-er in me insisted on removing the old carpet instead of paying to have the installers do it!
Amy says
That’s a lot of work! Luckily only one bedroom in our new house had carpet so I only had one room to rip up but there were two carpets worth of staples because they just laid the new one over the old one. I did it with pliers over several days. I can’t imagine 4 rooms and a hallway – the scraper was a great idea!
molly says
Just a tip for getting your crowbar under those splintery (is that a word?) tack strips: take a hammer and lightly tap on the other end of the crowbar. It makes getting your crowbar into tough places 1000% easier without losing your breath! Just a tip for anyone attempting similar projects down the road.
The upstairs looks great! So excited to see what floors you install!
YoungHouseLove says
Love that tip!
xo
s
Cheri s says
Psst….carpet pad, not mattress pad :) what a beautiful blank slate!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, all fixed :)
xo
s
Tiffany says
I did the same thing in my “new” house last July, but only two bedrooms. Stinky carpet and a million-and-seven staples! I had hardwoods underneath so a scraper was a no-go. I had to scoot around on my bottom with needle nose pliers hoping I didn’t end up sitting on a rogue staple I missed! Sadly, that happened several times. And my tack strips were a nightmare to remove! Brute woman strength!!! Cant wait to see your new flooring!
rachael says
This makes me want a dirty old house! wait…mine used to be like that and then we showed her some love. Somehow, it seems more fun when I just get to watch you guys do it and not actually have to live through it again.
Are you guys planning on putting Clara in her crib in her new room, or the big girl bed?
YoungHouseLove says
We’re just following her lead. We never could have guessed she wouldn’t be sleeping in her big girl room yet, but she still loves the crib! So the crib and the daybed might be in her room and she can transition from one to the other :)
xo
s
Yulia says
My oldest son slept in his crib until he was four and we had to switch him to a big boy bed because the new baby needed it. He loved his crib and never climbed out. Now the youngest one, he’s a whole different story! With two older brothers to look up to, he wants to do everything that they do. So at one and a half he refused the high chair and insisted on sitting on regular chairs like everyone else. I bet the crib won’t last too long either :(
Miranda says
The night we closed out on our first home we tore up all of the floors in the entire house. The worst part was the darn staples. They were even worse under our linoleum underlayment. What we found worked best was just a metal shovel to pop them all out. Still had to pull some out with pilers but for most part a shovel from the garage does the trick!
Lauren says
Wow! It already looks 1,000 times better!
Ashley@AttemptsAtDomestication says
That was one of the first things we did when we bought our house! The old gross carpet had to go! Since we replaced it with new carpet we just had the carpet installers remove the old stuff though.
Jessica says
When I bought my first house I literally spent weeks pulling staples out by hand before installing hardwood. DAYS and DAYS, usually with several people, it was pure hell. I wish I’d have know about the floor scraper. I even ended up at the county health department for tetanus shots after putting one of those lovely staples through my fingernail/finger. Way to go on the shortcuts!
Jane says
You should see if you can recycle the carpet. Many times they can be recycled into roofing material. You can call around to various carpet dealers for information or try CARE (The Carpet America Recovery Effort http://www.carpetrecovery.org/) Might as well give it another life before it hits el landfill ;)!!
YoungHouseLove says
Love that tip!
xo
s
Sjmatt says
Oh the staples. *shudder* We bought an old house (still not sure how old, though. heh. We keep discovering new pictures and maps of the town that put it older and older. We’re at at least to the 1870s now though!) which fortunately has the original old floors we could restore, but they had been covered in carpets for decades at least. There were at least 2 carpet pads worth of staples in the floors, and even if the scraper wouldn’t have damaged the wood, the floors are so warped and aged that I don’t think it would have worked anyway. So yeah. Days. Days and days of 2-6 people pulling staples up one by one with pliers and screwdrivers and anything else we could get to work. Now that it’s all done it was totally worth it, and I love the charm of the uneven boards, and the age they show, but it certainly was a ton of work to get them there!!
Loving reading about all your new adventures with this house! =)
Abby J says
Well now I’m not nearly as excited about replacing the carpet in our upstairs! Although ours isn’t stinky, so I guess that’s one plus! It looks great–I can’t wait to see what floor you guys put down. (We’re going for a light maple. It’s the one we finally agreed on. lol)
Abby J.
Allison says
I think you’re lucky the padding came up so easy. I pulled up the carpet in my current place and then went for the padding–which was so old it just disintegrated. Totally disgusting.
I’m so excited for this new adventure! Even if I am really sad that you’re leaving your current house.
Meghan says
I LOVE that picture of Clara at the end! So perfect!
I have done this job before… staples and all. Ugh! I can definitely feel your pain (and joy that it is done!)
Christina @ Homemade Ocean says
When I was renovating our last house…I spent three days pulling up old floors. If anyone ever asked me if it was difficult I tell them I lost 5 pounds in three days. I was a staple scraping machine!
Teresa @ wherelovemeetslife says
I am so excited for you guys… seriously. There is something thrilling about a new home, and one with the bones that you have really wanted? Priceless!
I was wondering if you would tackle that carpet before move-in.. it would have been on my list without a doubt! lol
Paula says
Nice work! We also recently lived through pulling up carpet – 960 square feet of it! It was even in the bathroom. Talk about nasty! You will soon be enojoying your new hardwood floors. The trickiest part about that for us was the transition pieces (ex: hardwood meeting tile). Have fun!
Barbara says
WOW! It is amazing how much cleaner and brighter it looks now! I wish I had a wonder scraper when I ripped up my carpets. We had the needle nose plier marathon going on! What would you have used if you had hardwoods under the carpet? I would think that the scraper would damage them more.
YoungHouseLove says
I think we’d have to do it all by hand over a few days!
xo
s
tjack432 says
Love this post and the tips. I know y’all don’t want to do a TV show, but you would be perfect for CREATE TV. Have you ever watched that channel? It is produced by PBS so there are no commercials and it is really just everyday people showing how they learned how to do something (and over time became proficient at it).
Your video reminded me a lot of the videos on CREATE TV: simple/informative/to-the-point/clean. You could probably even produce it yourself.
Anyway, thanks for the tip and good luck with the rest of the flooring :)
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks! We’ve never seen that. I think we’re just happy to focus on the blog and our house and our family and not on TV stuff. We like hiding behind our laptops. Haha!
xo
s
Sandy says
Have done this quite a few times now. Your subfloors look awesome, though. Not what we found below our carpet (had to replace the entire upstairs in our brand new house – long story). When you get to the carpet on the stairs, I can’t recommend the $10 (or so) nipper pliers that you can get at blue or orange enough. They are awesome and will make the job go so much faster for any small nail or staple removal you might encounter.
Good luck! Can’t wait to see the new floors!
Sarah says
Oh I feel your pain in my back and knees! Oh those horrid staples! We’ve done that job in our current house a few times to reveal our old wide plank hardwoods floors. We’re going to be doing it again in a few months on our next house. We’re moving into a family members house to work on it for them but sadly we already know there is no hardwood under the old 1970s carpet.
Ellen says
We started ripping up the carpet in the upstairs of our house (started with my stepson’s room thinking it would help with his allergies) and we kept going…
Just a tip for future carpet ripper-uppers – it’s a lot easier to transport old carpet by cutting it into strips and rolling up smaller sections. We’ve found that by doing that, we can bundle them up (with duct tape) into smaller sized bundles that our heavy trash pick up will come and get.
Richelle says
I know DIY is what you guys love to do, but sometimes I don’t know how you have the energy. I got tired just reading that post!
When you get around to painting that lovely blue trim will you post a tutorial? I know you have a painting one already, but it doesn’t really go into trim and I’m imagining since this house is older it’s a lot like my trim and dinged up in place and in need of some TLC.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we’ll share all of those details as we go :)
xo
s
Martha says
I feel your carpet pulling pain! We are in the process of converting our ugly, gross tan-carpeted house into one of hardwood floors. Luckily my husband is the designated carpet puller since I am the designated hardwood installer. I’m happy to report that installing new floors is much faster, easier, and cleaner than pulling out the awful carpet and the millions of staples!
Karen T. says
It’s so much work to remove carpet! In our new/old home, the previous owner put carpet everywhere, including the bathrooms! Grrrrossss! We ripped out that stinko business right away, and are working on our tile.
Hey…tool tip for you guys. Do you have a Robo-Grip? It’s kind of like a super-strenth pliers…but it really makes things much easier to do. We use it all.the.time. on various jobs.
Love the Fresh Prince show song reference!
YoungHouseLove says
Never hear do of that! Will have to check it out!
xo
s
mary @ bgjournals.com says
“pure, adulterated pressed wood” just made my morning–you guys are hilarious, and serious work-horses! can’t stop being impressed by you two…
Holly C says
When we bought our hot mess of a foreclosure last year, we ripped out ALL the carpet upstairs to get to the sealed gleaming hardwoods underneath. What a huge job, like you said, SO many staples, but it turned out amazing. Now we’re on to the basement and ripping out the carpet and staples down there. Yuck, but I’m so glad you shared the super tool, can’t wait to try it as opposed to those darn needle nose pliers!
Kelyl says
You can see if you can recycle the carpet and pad. I teach at a college focused on sustainable and renewable energy, and one term, a student did a presentation on carpet recycling. Before that, I did not know it was recyclable. Of course, not all areas do so, but maybe Richmond does.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Kelyl!
xo
s
Casey says
Here in ky the trash truck will take away carpet cut into less than 4 ft rolls that have been tied up and can be easily lifted ( so not too long)
YoungHouseLove says
We’ll have to see if they’ll do that here too!
xo
s
Sayward says
OMG it’s happening! This is like when you’re at the movies and they’re still just showing adds for soda and you talk to your friends and try to figure out if you have time to pee one more time. Then all of a sudden the lights go down and the previews start and everyone’s captivated. That’s this post. I think a collective hush just fell over your crowd :)
YoungHouseLove says
Hilarious. I love it. We’re just as geeked out to dive into this stuff too! Haha! We were saying that the new house finally feels real and like it’s ours since we’re getting in there and getting our hands dirty.
xo
s
Ashley says
Great job! We just tackled one room and it was no fun. We did not install the hardwood ourselves though, and I went with a local Richmond contractor. He got sick and never finished the job, so be sure to give some good steps for the shoe mold and the putty to hide the imperfections! Looks like we’ll be finishing his (already paid for) job on our own! If anyone know a good, reasonably priced contractor who can do our stairs next, we don’t feel comfortable tackling that process on our own!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh no! Anyone have tips or a recommendation for Ashley?
xo
s
Rebecca says
Wish we had heard of that floor scraper when doing new carpet in our first house. Although it probably wouldn’t have worked too great on our open steps which has staples all around it because of the wrapped carpet.