Thread Bare Carpet
It’s been almost ten years since we moved to this “ranch”. If you are thinking of a big cattle ranch with thousands of acres and hundreds of cattle, you wouldn’t be thinking of our place. However, our 40 acres meets the definition of a ranch according to the County Assessor of Larimer County. It’s a ranch.
When we bought this place we got 40 acres, a septic system, a domestic well, some (quite) old fencing and a free house. Not much of a house, but none the less a house. One of the first decisions Elaine and I had to make was, should we tear the house down or start remodeling it. (I’m not kidding)
I’m really not sure why, but we put in new windows, siding and a new roof on the house before we moved in. Ok, I’m sure why! It was to make it livable. What I’m not sure about is why we made the changes to this ranch house when we had a perfectly good house, three times the size as this one in town.
If there was one good thing about our new ranch home was the carpet. It was brand new. Brand new cream colored carpet in a house surrounded by dirt; wet dirt, dry dirt, grass covered dirt, snow covered dirt, and a whole bunch of dirt.
Sadly, our brand new carpet is now ten years old. They have not been a good ten years and our carpet has not fared well. Did you know that dogs have the ability to find seams in the carpet? Once the seams have been found, dogs will work at opening the seams so you know where the seams are also!
Cream colored carpet and dirt are not friends. It is more of a bully and victim situation. The dirt sits on the carpet and pounds itself into the carpet; it’s not pretty folks.
Thank God, there is a happy ending to this story. Elaine and I decided the carpet had to go. We went down to The Orange Depot and picked out a beautiful laminate flooring that was on SALE! Remember, I have been playing construction worker for over thirty years, before and during being a partner in a yarn store. (Remember, this is a yarn store blog) (Which reminds me, who came up with the word blog? Sorry, I get distracted very easily.) Elaine and I decided we would remove our carpet and lay the laminate ourselves. We have done this before.
That was the happy part of this story. The rest of the story is not as happy. Elaine and I waited until the outside temperature did not get above 15 degrees. Not a big deal? We were inside. Yes, we moved furniture from one side of the room to the other, tore up the carpet, put the furniture back on the non-carpet side and removed the rest of the carpet. We then hauled the carpet outside and threw it in the dirt. I will take it to the landfill later. We accomplished this with the help of four curious, stressed and very big dogs. The dogs helped by going outside and then coming back in about every six minutes. That’s where that 15 degree temperature comes into play. When you open your door that many times your work will not make you sweat.
We removed the carpet and put down the first row of laminate. And then another row. That was about the time the dogs started walking on the laminate. The more they walked the more the laminate separated. Elaine and I put down two boxes of laminate. After a little bit of construction language, we agreed to pull the laminate up and put in back in the boxes. We took it back to The Orange Depot.
We don’t have any flooring now. As soon as it warms up, I might go outside and get my cream carpet.
Our crazy lives!
Monner