So you want to rip up you carpet and stain your floors - no problem. I did it. I thought "yep, I just buy the kit at Home Depot, then rip up the carpet and tack boards, fill holes, and tape up plastic the first day, etch and stain the second day and seal it the third day ... Then the hard part waiting 72 hours to put your furniture back in place." I was delusional! Let me tell you what it's really like.
We went to Home Depot and bought the kit. I had researched online and made a list of what I thought I would need and was prepared to spend extra money on those items. I bought gloves, boots, plastic sheets, blue tape, broom, vinyl filler for the holes, putty knives, and even an extra can or concrete stain. All in all I spent about $100 more than the kit. And I was borrowing a shop vac.
If you are ripping up carpet by yourself, you aren't doing crap else that day. The good news is that it is very satisfying, and the sound of the hammer hitting the pry bar is a sound you get used to fairly quickly.
The bad news can vary. It took me a long time because I was pulling up tack boards as I went so I didn't have to worry about Xman's little feet. You need a trash can to hold the tack boards as you pull them up. Also, you need to call your waste people in advance to have them haul off the carpet, and they have requirements about how big pieces can be. And the worst news might be what you find under your carpet. Most of the living room looked like I expected: a little carpet glue and a little paint/stain, the hall way was completely painted and the entry way had about 2 1/2 feet of thin set for no reason with more carpet glue than everywhere else in the house combined.
Hopefully you have an army of minions and you can still roll through this no problem. If you are on your own you may need to embrace the process and take your time.
Okay so the carpet is up. Now the hole repair. This part was a little more complex than I thought but not bad. I read the directions on the containers. I thought it was pre-mixed - it wasn't, so that added another step. I used my gardening pad to kneel on and save my knees. I mixed the filler in a plastic cup and used a plastic spoon to mix and later to fill the holes. According to my instructions I wet the holes, vacuumed out the holes, added filler and scraped them level. I also used a target bag to contain what I scraped up.
I also taped ... and taped ... and taped. I taped the bottom of the base boards using my putty knife to stick the tape to the underside of the baseboard. Does this seem odd? I don't really want to replace all my baseboards, so I was trying to protect them, hopefully I did, but I am a little worried about how much liquid we used. Once I taped the bottom of the baseboards I took 9' x 12' sheets of plastic and cut them and taped the. To the baseboards and up the walls. My hubby had to help me some with this by holding the plastic up while I taped. I thought of Dexter a lot during this process.
Then I thought I was finally done with prep. And the etcher seemed like a two person job, but the hubby and the family were busy so I was fortunate enough to enlist a friend to help me - what a lifesaver!
I mixed the concentrate and we poured and worked on spreading it around with a broom. Problems: it says not to let it dry - it dries quickly. The lines where we poured were visible and we didn't seem to have enough. The paint and construction mess wasn't coming up.
Then we tried to rinse the floors and the plan was to use the shop vac to suck up the water, but it wouldn't suck the water up. So I became frustrated. I sent my friend home, took the kid to Home Depot to come up with a new plan and then gave myself a time out (to work through the process) with my sister-in-law.
At this point I was 5 days in, and losing hope. I thought I read that the etcher would take up the construction mess, and maybe it will if you don't have much of a mess. If you have a mess you need to go back to Home Depot or Lowes.
So my hubby came home, we talked though the process and he went to the store.
He came back with a new shop at (that sucks up water like a champ), a mop bucket with a wringer, new mop, and cleaning solutions.
After days of scrubbing and scraping here are my suggestions.
The best tools for removing paint are Krud Kutter, a putty knife, a scrub brush and towels. Pour on the Krud Kutter, scrap the knife, scrub then wipe, move to the next section, repeat.
To remove carpet glue: pour boiling water in a small section, let it sit and start scraping. I scraped the glue dry to remove some I think this o my made my job harder, if it's thicker sometimes you can get underneath the paint and it's a little easier to make more progress.
For the adhesive from the laminate floors of the kitchen and bathrooms I used Goof Off -- worked like a charm! I was also able to get a little of the thin set off with the Goof Off, but it is stinky! Open a window.
So finally we were ready to try etching again. I had a lot more this time, it still dried, but we did better. And this time I poured a spot the. We we would spread it around and pour another spot and even used a random pattern. Waited more than 10 minutes and scrubbed (we had to add some water to the dry spots).
The we flooded a section of floor, vacuumed it up, and poured more water on it and vacuumed agin. We let it dry and the. It was still a bit chalky so I mopped two more times and finally a week and a day from the time a started I was ready to add color.
So I added the base color. I probably went too light. The color was very orange and I was worried about adding too much and figured I could always add more later.
I let it dry and opened the accent color - dark brown! I was so excited and used every drop of that color.
Once it dried the hubby and I walked it to see if we really wanted to add the black/grey. We decided to add it.
I started spraying it and noticed it looked a little blue, and it was thick. It wasn't drying as fast as the other colors, and it seemed to be bubbling up. When I looked at the container I realized the other two were dye and the third was stain. So we left and I started worrying. And I went to Home Depot to buy rags to try to wipe up the black. But by the time I got back the bubbling up was no longer visible and the floors looked amazing. The black even his several of our problems areas.
Tomorrow I stain and then we have to stay off of it for 24 hours. Then a few days later I can move the furniture back in and try to get my life back in order!
