Demolition time . . . takes more time!

So far Max's job hunt is only turning up possibilities outside of our area--way out. We have decided to do small things to fix up only the real eyesores in our house in case we have to sell it quickly. This first project was only going to take one week. I carefully planned out all the needed steps to remove the carpet from my back stairs and redo them with vinyl tile. I figured out all the time necessary for each task. LOL

I don't know who would put white carpet on a stairway that is a back entrance to the house and also an entrance at the bottom from the garage! Anyway it was turning black and impossible to clean.
Week #1
I grabbed my handy pliers and pulled at the carpet, but it took a crowbar to get it all up. Then, surprise, there had been another rust-colored carpet sometime in the past, and under that was old-fashioned linoleum that was yellow and curling. So it had to be pried up as well. Underneath that were several layers of cardboard backing that had to be soaked off and then there were thick black globs of petrified glue. I tried solvent, but ended up doing better with just applying soaked towels and scraping forever. So that one day job took a full week.
Week #2
Another week was spent pulling out the 3/4 inch long staples that had thrice been applied to the wooden staircase (two carpets and one linoleum). I mostly used a pair of pliers. Max calls them dikes (dykes?) If that wouldn't do it, I used a hammer and screwdriver to get them up high enough for the funny looking pliers to pull them. (Correction: Max says that dikes are really wire cutters. Well--they worked really well as pliers.) Regretfully, I have both carpal tunnel and arthritis in my hands. (Not to mention all the little rips and tears they just suffered due to sharp staples.) This job wiped out another week and thoroughly damaged my hands. I had to take a day off every other day because they froze up (no movement) and throbbed so much. But the stairs were finally clean and free of pokey thingys.

I spackled over the holes they left because we decided that the wooden stairs were so old (1920's) that they were warped and had many divets and holes, not just from the staples either. So it had to be patched. This was time-intensive as well. So my sweet hubby did the final sanding for me.Week #3

This week I also overcame my fear of heights and painted the walls a nice dark cornflower blue (darker than the picture shows). I had to go to the top of a 10 foot ladder to reach the ceilings, which I left white. Then came the second coat and lots of touch up around the two electrical boxes and all the exterior electrical cables and pipes and such. The second color was a warm chocolate brown, painted on the risers, or vertical parts of the stairs, the lip of the stairs and eight-inch sides on each side of the staircase. That also needed another coat and touchup. Yay, almost done. :) Time for the finishing touches. This shouldn't take long, right?

None of the steps was the exact same size of any other step, so each vinyl tile had to be measured and cut and placed three to a step. The cutting part was pretty easy on my hands. It went fairly fast and it looked so good. In fact, it was lovely. Just what I pictured. But then we quickly figured out that water and snow from the back door would likely cause these self-stick (cheap closeout) tiles to get unstuck. First I bought some of that pewter-colored metal-step-edge-covering-stuff. I cut it by myself with a jigsaw and hammered 60 little nailscrews down on the 13 edges. I had some ceramic tile sealer left over from putting in the front entry tile, so we going to try that out. (But I'm not up to it yet.)

THERE WERE TWELVE STEPS

and TWO LANDINGS

Final Note: Not bad considering I put in three weeks time for a one week job! But I can keep it clean now. :)

On to the laundry . . .