So this weekend was crazy.
As I mentioned last week, we were prepping the house for new floors! Yay!
The flooring came in Friday and dad came over to help us get it in the house. It needed to sit inside our house for a couple of days to acclimate. We had already pulled up the carpet in the hallway, so that’s where we put the majority of the boxes.
Saturday was busy. My parents came over to help us with the rest of the demolition. We got the living room carpet up really quickly and easily. We discovered a razor blade and a cigarette butt underneath it all!
That was the easy part.
We had rented a machine that was supposed to pull up the tile in the kitchen, but while Chase and dad were pulling up the ceramic tile in the entryway, mom and I started pulling up the two layers of linoleum in the kitchen ourselves. It came surprisingly easy, and it was very satisfying to rip it out in big chunks!
Then we had to take a break to run to Hannah’s going away party- she is moving to go to school out of state! We couldn’t stay long because we had to get back and get the glue up in the kitchen and smooth out the areas where the ceramic tile was, plus a ton of cleaning.
I spent the afternoon sweeping, vacuuming and mopping every bit of floor in sight.
Chase was busy finishing pulling up the ceramic tile. Dad came back for a while to help move some heavy things. Upon moving the stove, we dicovered all of Luna’s catnip mice, and a fork that predates us living in the house. EW!
I was REALLY hoping we would be done enough that I could go to the Star Wars Roller Derby event that night. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, the machine we rented had to be back the next morning so we had to keep working to get it done that night 🙁
But I got the majority of the floors cleaned up and ready to go. Unfortunately late that night Chase discovered that he needed a second machine to clear and smooth the entryway, so the whole needing to stay home that night to finish using that machine ended up being kinda null and if we’d realized that sooner, I probably could have gone to Roller Derby 🙁
But anyway, Sunday morning Chase left to get the other machine, came back and started using it before I even got out of bed (he only rented it for 4 hours). It was basically a jackhammer so really loud… when I came out of the bedroom, I discovered the air was like a fog, the machine was just spitting this stuff everywhere, a fine dust… and poor Luna was still out in the living room and the noise absolutely terrified her. We had to stop and search for her (after I donned goggles and an air mask), finally finding her wedged all the way back underneath the couch. We got her into our bedroom where nothing was going on for the rest of the day.
And then… the dust. My throat still hurts today from breathing it in a few times. We threw open the doors and windows and set up fans – thankfully it was a nice day out. But everything…. literally everything in the entryway, laundry room, hallway, kitchen and living room was coated in a layer of fine dust.
All the cleaning I’d done the day before was for naught; but worse, it was just that it was on EVERYTHING. All of our kitchen stuff. The curtains. Everything!
So once we got the air clear, we started cleaning. Had to wipe down everything, vacuum the furniture, wash everything in the kitchen, and then re-vacuum and re-mop all the floors again. But, by last night, everything was ready to go for the flooring:
Since the living room is a mess, I went into my office and pulled Amidala out. The bottom petals have of course gotten dirty over the years, but walking around on the asphalt at WSMI in 2010 was killer on it. I’ve got to get it cleaned up before May the 4th.
Here’s some of the dirty petals – notice the serged edges are the worst of it.
Even worse was the interior of the base cape – this was the worst spot:
At first I tried soaking the bottom edge in a sink with some warm water and some Grandma’s Spot Remover, but I was seeing more dye coming off of it than I was comfortable with. I don’t mind re-dying the ends as needed, but I didn’t want to create more work than necessary.
So I filled a bowl with some warm water, got a toothbrush and the Grandma’s Spot Remover. I put a drop of the spot remover on the toothbrush, scrubbed it into the hem on each edge, and then massaged it into the lower half of the petal, let it set for 10 minutes, and then rinsed. It was working pretty well. I’ve only gone about halfway around, and haven’t messed with the base cape yet (I probably will just soak that part in some regular stain remover). I am seeing a LITTLE bit of colour loss, but like I said, I don’t mind a bit of re-dying. Just not a ton!
Anyway. The guy is at the house today starting on the install. Unfortunately his help is sick so it may stretch out into Wednesday :\