New Carpet

We are getting new carpet. Not really by choice, although I imagine the old stuff could be salvaged. Laying it back down, despite the cuts we had to make really couldn't hurt it's already tired appearance.

The story goes something like this:

Sunday we killed ourselves doing yard work. Okay, we didn't really kill ourselves, but it was hot (90 or so, about 20 degrees above my maximum comfortable temp) and we are wimps. Well, I am a wimp, Hubs actually did some hard work. But I digress...
After toiling away in the hot sun, we were both desperately in need of showers. Matt went in to take one while I stayed outside with my no napping child who was enjoying herself splashing in (on?) her water table. About two minutes after he went in, he came back out and asked if I had spilled anything on the carpet by our bedroom door. I had not, and was about ready to go kill the dogs, thinking they had had an accident. They had been inside all afternoon since we were working with the gate open (but not longer than they are on days when we are gone.) I went in to check it out and the first thing I noticed was the only wet spots I could see were in the shape of foot prints. Then I gingerly stepped my toe on the wet area and squish! We are talking lots of water...the carpet was soaked and it was coming up! That can't be good. We did a little more investigating and realized the carpet all along the wall that divides our room from Chickie's was wet, in both rooms. *Awesome* Matt called the plumber and we quickly figured out that the pipe to the outside faucet had burst. You know how they tell you to take the hose off the spigot before it freezes...yeah, best to pay attention to that one! We did take the hose off for the winter, but apparently not soon enough. When we used the hose for the first time this season, the water started leaking. And we weren't just using the hose intermittently, but I had it on for a couple hours, with one of those sprayers on it. So even though it wasn't flowing because I wasn't holding down the sprayer, it actually was flowing, just into our house. The good news was that the leak was in a good spot, so it wasn't actively leaking if the faucet wasn't on. Which was good, because calling a plumber at 5:30 on a Sunday evening is probably like 5 times the normal rate (even though our plumber is really cool!) The plumber told us he would be out at noon the next day to fix the leak, but in the mean time we needed to pull off the base boards and pull up the carpet to let it dry out. Mind you, this is after a long day of yard work. Not only did we not want to be moving furniture, we were dog tired and barely could move it! Like I said, we - or at least I - are wimps. We pulled up the carpet and it smelled mildew-y already. And we had to cut the carpet to get up one area of it. And when working in Chickie's room, we noticed an area where the drywall looked to have been patched. We had noticed the spot before, but never really paid attention to it. But wouldn't you know, when the plumber came the next day, that is exactly where he cut. Wonder if the previous owner's ever made the same mistake.
Anyway, since Matt had taken the day off yesterday to deal with the plumber (he has this thing about wanting to be here whenever any work men are here, which is fine with me because then I don't have to deal with it!) we decided to just go and get a feel for what carpet would cost. Our carpet was beyond trashed when we moved in five years ago, and with two dogs and one toddler, it certainly isn't getting any better. It turns out it wasn't quite as expensive as we were thinking, and we know that we would need new carpet before we could ever sell the house, so we decided to go for it. The guy came today to measure (him and Matt really hit it off...I think they talked guitars as long, if not longer, than they talked carpet!) today and the carpet should be installed on Friday. It will be nice to have carpet that actually looks clean when I vacuum.
However, since we are essentially re-carpeting 2/3 of our house, it is a pain to pack up and move everything we can into the garage, family room, and kitchen. And poor Chickie is bored out of her gourd because she can't play like she usually does because our bedrooms are essentially in her playroom since we had to take the carpet up to let it dry out.

And least we have a long weekend to get the house put back together. And tomorrow is the drop off for our MOPS garage sale, and I am thinking all this moving around of our possessions may just inspire to donate a few items!