Help me refinish my bedroom - DIY advice sought

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, I had a little roof issue last week that manifested itself in a very small leak in my bedroom. As a result, most of the contents of my bedroom are redistributed to other parts of the house. (The leak was over my bed; moving the mattress meant moving other stuff out of the room.) I’m taking this opportunity to repaint and generally upgrade the room.

Tasks I’d like to do:

  1. Take up the carpet and refinish or paint the floor. (This is step one in the banishment of carpet from my home. The carpet is ugly and old, and I have allergies.)

  2. Refinish the baseboards, the window frame, and - depending on time, budget and inspiration - possibly my bedroom door.

  3. Paint the ceiling-fan blades.

  4. Paint the bi-fold doors.

  5. Paint the ceiling and walls.

  6. Maybe, if I haven’t completely lost patience, re-paint the bed and dresser.

What I’m looking for:

  1. Advice on what order to do things in. My brother and I don’t agree on whether to paint or take up the carpet first. I want to take up the carpet because I’m pretty sure that the pad is crumbly and I don’t want to get newly-painted walls all dusty. He thinks the carpet will make a nifty drop cloth.

  2. Advice on floor refinishing. There’s no subfloor, so I’m planning to lightly sand and finish with a few coats of polyurethane or porch and floor paint, depending on how the wood looks (budget is tight; I already have both on hand from previous projects). Depending on how things work out, I’ll use the floor as a subfloor later.

  3. Advice on removing the baseboards. The house was built in 1929 and the baseboards are varnished wood.

  4. Advice on taking up the carpet. What’s the easiest way to do this?

  5. Recommendations for helpful Web sites and/or books, if you have them handy. I’m going to look around, but if you have any you’ve used successfully, I’d appreciate links.

It’s a small room (8’ x 12’/2.4 x 3.7m), so there’s not a lot of fancy stuff to do. I’m going to move some pictures around, maybe hang a couple of shelves to put framed pictures on, possibly add a dust ruffle to hide the drawers that live under the dresser, but everything else already lives in the only place it fits.

Advice? Ideas? Comments?

Thanks in advance…

GT

2

Do you have any pictures of the room? What do you mean by refinish the baseboards? Remove the varnish and revarnish? Restain? For general projects, I’ve used the Home Depot 1-2-3 books. Here is a link.

I have stripped paint before and it is a giant pain in the ass. If you are going to strip the paint of the doors do it outside. I’ve never had carpet that I could use as a drop-cloth but I have contemplated doing that in a place we almost bought.

M I have painted furniture, more specifically, Ikea furniture that didn’t match anything. Scuff it up a little so that the pimer has something to stick to and work from there.

3

i’d go with floors last. yes, it would make a good dropcloth.

i usually work from the top down. ceiling, walls, floors. i consider trim that is on the walls as part of the walls.

think at least a full day (24 hours) per project, ceiling and walls. the floors will be 4+ days (96+hours) .

floor fun!

  1. cut the carpet into workable pieces, you will need to scrape up parts of the pad, and there may be tacks galore. think 1-2 days. plan it around trash day if possible.

  2. clean the floor. once again, do it in pieces, bits at a time. i went through 24 rolls of bounty doing this. i used clear water with vinegar, pour a bit, use a scrubby thing (you will go through a lot of scrubby things) wipe up with paper towel; rinse with more vinh2o, wipe up with paper towel. move to next section. 1 full day.

  3. decide if there will be sanding. if there will be, throw some old sheets in the washer, when you take them out, hang them in all doorways keep doors closed. if possible place fans in the window(s) blowing out. sand in bits. once all the sanding is done, vinh2o again with the paper towels. then tack cloth. 1 full day.

  4. stain/paint. this is the easier bit. pour the stuff, spread the stuff with appropiate tool, move toward exit, close all doors, let dry at least one full day.

  5. poly. once again an easier bit. pour, spead, move toward exit, close all doors, let dry at least 2-3 days if possible.

  6. move in furniture. while drying is happening in step 4 and 5 you can decide on what furniture, accesories, art, lighting, etc, will go into the room.

  7. take a nice long shower/ bath, get into a freshly made bed in a nicely redone, sparkly new room, and get well deserved rest.

4

You will probably want a pair of pliers, or channel locks, or vise-grips, to pull carpet tacks/nails out of the floor. Also a flat-head screwdriver to pry staples up so the pliers can get a grip on them. Also a hammer to pound down the heads of the ones that broke off so you don’t stab yourself every time you walk across the floor in bare feet for the next 50 years.

Be prepared for the possibility that the foam pad has either been glued to the floor, or that time and wear patterns has caused it to glue itself down in spots. You will need a putty knife to scrape it off, and lots more time than you had originally anticipated, especially if the floor will need sanding afterwards to remove all the black glue spots you couldn’t get off with the putty knife.

Have a carpet disposal plan ahead of time. Some municipal trash haulers don’t take kindly to enormous rolls and wads of discarded carpeting suddenly appearing in your trash, and will cheerfully ignore it, week after week.

To remove the baseboards, you generally just pry them up very, very carefully with a wrecking bar, trying not to leave dents in the plaster walls (put a piece of cardboard under the part of the pry bar that’s touching the walls, for padding). They ought to come away from the wall, intact, with nails sticking out of them.

Second the recommendation that you take all woodwork outside (a garage is perfect) to refinish it. The fumes can be intense, even with the citrus strippers, which even though they may tout themselves as “environmentally friendly”, can still be dangerous.

As for books, those Sunset House/Time-Life/Better Homes & Gardens series are perfect for the casual DIYer. They sell them at Menards, Lowes, etc., and your local public library will have entire sets of them in the stacks.

5

You’re right to remove the carpet first. In the process of removing the carpet, you’re liable to scuff the walls. Even after it is dry, paint is soft for a while. Plus, it’s not like drop cloths are expensive or hard to use, and you’re planning on sanding the floor anyway.

6

Pleeeease make sure you get yourself a mask and protective eyewear before you start removing the carpeting if you think any of the pad has become powder.

I removed my aunt’s nasty old carpet a few years back and it was about the dustiest thing I’ve ever done. Who knows what kind of nasties from the past 20 years you’ll be breathing in if you go without a mask.

7

Thanks for the tips and time estimates! I’m always extremely optimistic about timelines, so it’s helpful to get ideas from others.

I took pictures today and will post them tomorrow.

I’m planning to stain (if necessary) and re-varnish both the baseboards and the bedroom door (it’s not painted, thank goodness). Also planning to do as much work as possible in the great outdoors. And yes, I’ll be wearing a mask; I don’t even want to think about what all may be in and under the carpet!

I’m also planning to split the carpet removal across a couple of trash days; I think that will be OK. I’m spoiled and live in a suburb where I can call the city if they don’t pick up the trash and they’ll make a special trip out to get it, so I’m not terribly worried.

GT

8

When we removed all the carpet from my hubby’s house, we cut it into strips. I think each strip was like 3 feet across. we rolled these up and taped the rolls with duct tape. We rolled the padding and carpet together.

These were stacked at the curb, and the regular trash guys got them. I think they picked some up each trash day until they were all gone.

9

To the list of tools add a Stanley “WunderBar” (Possibly spelled WonderBar). This is a small crow bar bent from flat steel. Damn handy for prying loose baseboards without breaking them, or removing tack strips without dinging the floor much…not as good as the kind made from hex stock for heavy demolition work, but just the ticket for gentle persuasion.

10

Get yourself a pair of heavy duty gloves. If you’re going to be ripping up nasty, stinky, dirty carpeting (that may or may not contain nails, tacks, staples, etc.), then you’ll need the gloves to protect your hands. Also, when you’re on the floor, pulling up tacks, staples, nails, etc. with your needle nose pliers, your palms and fingers will become incredibly sore and sensitive without gloves. (Depending on how many you need to pull, maybe even with gloves.)

Anything physical (hauling furniture, etc.) will be handled easier with gloves, plus they’ll protect your hands and fingers from being bumped on doorways, etc. If you hands are too small for “regular” work gloves (mine are), then your local home improvement store should have an array of gardening gloves that are well padded and have anti-slip pads on the palm/fingers.

Word of advice (I speak from experience)–have your meals set up BEFORE you begin. (Crock pot food is perfect for something like this.) When you’re tired, sweaty, sore and STARVING is not the time to think about ordering a pizza, or what you want on a sub or who is going to run to get it, or do you have enough cash to pay a delivery guy, etc. You want food and want it NOW. Walking into the kitchen to open a Crock pot filled with BBQ or stew or whatever that is immediately available to eat can make the difference between a successfull ending to the day or being the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

11

One thing that hasn’t been brought up was the root cause of this issue – the leaky roof. I’m going to assume that the leak has been fixed, but what of the ceiling in this room? The easiest thing would be to apply some Kilz over the (assumed) stain and paint the ceiling, but you’re opening yourself up for a world of trouble down the road. You’ve now got a lot of moisture trapped up in there, and before you know you’re going to have a nice mold colony in your ceiling.

This is all subjective, depending on the building materials involved, but it should certainly be investigated. Even if it’s just a matter of drilling a decent-sized hole in the ceiling and shining a flashlight in there, you need to know what’s going on above your head. Worst case, you’ll have to cut out a 2’x2’ section of ceiling and pull the old, wet, moldy insulation. Shove some new insulation up there; replace the drywall, spackle and paint. It’s a pain in the ass project, but it’s a hell of a lot better than noticing your entire ceiling turning an odd shade of black six months down the road.

12

Excellent point, Hal. As soon as the new roof is on, I’m going to climb up into the attic to inspect. I should be able to see the spot from above and see the condition of the insulation. Ideas for anything else to look for?

And thanks for the reminder about food, phall. When my old roommate and I move in here, we (along with her boyfriend and my brother) took down wallpaper and painted. We were regulars at Bob Evans that week. Really don’t want to repeat that.

It’s a Wonderbar, Kevbo (they have them on Amazon). I can’t remember what I have in the way of prybars (I know I have at least one), but will take a look at the options when I go shopping.

I’ll post pics tonight…

Thanks all, for your suggestions - please add more!

GT

13

Knee pads. You will be spending a lot of time down low. Forget rolled up towels and the like. Get the real deal. There will be more rooms and gardening uses too.
Top to bottom has always been the rule. You can roll up a lot of small trash, dust, and ick when gathering up the carpet strips.
Baseboard. If it doesn’t come off well, replacement is a cheap option and a fresh pallete to work with.
Don’t go weird with paint colors, trim is generally a slightly darker shade than walls. Take breaks.