A long awaited project....

There are a few who know about my 'clean carpet obsession'. The excessive carpet shampooing, the strict rules about shoes coming off, yup I could very well be a carpet nazi! So it was no surprise how excited I was when we decided to rip out the carpet and replace it with vinyl tiles....specifically TrafficMasters Allure vinyl tiles from Home Depot! I have been waiting for this day forever! No more stinky carpets, and all carpets to me are stinky. I don't know why RV companies insist on putting a carpet in an RV, it's just ridiculous, especially with the moisture issue.


I've got a few ideas on how to do the slideout, which is presenting a bit of a challenge but I don't mind too much. Anyway, here are some pictures....I will update as we go!And yes, I still owe a backdated entry and wedding pictures. Not quite caught up yet;-)

 

First, we ripped out the side walkway carpet, to get a feel of what we were dealing with.

Next was the living room carpet, which not only revealed the padding, but also little 'surprises',

other than the trillions of staples!

The 'surprise' was a couple of water stains due to Mittens accidents during his bladder blockage.

Actually, the stains were from me cleaning this up with the shampooer!

KZ couldn't put tile in because they had to take the slides off. We found a way around this...

CUT the carpet from the wall....

And then the most tedious job; pulling the threads and fibers out with pliers!

Under the padding....

Surprisingly this was the ONLY place with mold.

Oddly nothing concerning the shampooer or Mittens had caused this!

Javex was the cure. No black mold left!

And so the REAL fun began....which was the easy part of course!

Installation of an awesome new floor!

HOORAY! Well, it's not even half done, but I took a picture cutting off the unfinished part. I leave the Swiffer there for a reason....YES that is all I have to use now to clean the floor, and I cleaned the area before putting the chairs back....and had WAY too much fun doing it. It was more exciting than I'd like to admit....

Overall this particular flooring system was easy and fast. The hardest part of it was ripping all the stuff out and getting rid of all the staples. Only a few challenges left until our new floor. I think it looks pretty good!

We chose this type of flooring over the others for certain reasons. Laminate while very nice and easy to install like vinyl, can swell and buckle if liquid is spilled and left for a bit. Not good for the RV....and not good when you have a kitten that likes to play in his fountain and dish....! We didn't go for real tile/real wood because of the weight issue. I have enough clothes and boots pushing us to the limit as is:-P We didn't do the one sheet of vinyl as it would be hard to get down and cut.

With the TrafficMaster adhesive strips, th ere is no floor prepping and it can pretty much go on top of anything. Very cool!
More pictures soon as we finish!