Death to the Blue Carpet

A few months ago I came to Petaluma to view an apartment. It was listed as 900 sq ft., the second floor of a Victorian close to downtown. When I got to the house and opened the front door, the first thing which struck me was the carpeting in the stairway. It was threadbare, in places poorly hand-stitched together, and Cookie Monster blue. Hideous. The second thing which struck me was the smell of the carpet.

Despite that and the otherwise run down nature of the exterior of the house, I took the apartment and so far have not regretted it. However I still had to deal with that blue carpet every time I went up the stairs to my place.

Until today.

This morning, around 10:30, my downstairs neighbor Brian and I assaulted the carpet with extreme prejudice. We ripped. We pulled. We pulled up nails and staples and tack strips. By about 1:30 the job was done. Beneath the carpeting is old linoleum tile, a bit worse for wear but still a vast improvement over the rotting smelly offensively ugly carpet. A good scrubbing (once my back recovers from this morning’s task) and a couple of colorful (and cheap) rugs from Ikea and it’ll be a whole new world around here.

The carpet removal seems to have lifted either a spell or spirits around here already. I went out to run some errands and just generally chill. When I returned, the front door was open, letting fresh air in and dust out, and a new ficus and air freshener had taken up residence in the entranceway. I’m not sure who put them there, but they’re much appreciated. Maybe this is just the first drop in the flood of home improvements around here. I hope so.