Once Upon A Staircase (Part 1)
Back when I posted about my staircase adventure, many of you asked me to tell you the story in more detail. In between that time and now, I remodeled my kitchen, so you could say I got a BIT sidetracked (DIY Mania, anyone?).
But I got the kitchen situation mostly buttoned up (more on that later), so now it’s time to backtrack and tell you all about the adventure I have come to call “The time a staircase ate my life”. Fair warning: This post contains graphic photos of desolated subfloor. It’s GROSS, so proceed at your own risk, Gentle Readers.
It was complete desperation that drove me to learn how to build a staircase. Disclaimer: I’m in no way confident that I did learn how. Like all my adventures, there’s a fine line between actual understanding and totally just making stuff up as I go.
My upstairs hall, post-carpet and pad removal.
You may recall that I moved out of my house for a year, from October 2019 to October 2020. After that, I returned and my children’s father moved out. During my absence, our beloved Bailey dog aged into what can only be described as total incontinence. I’m not sure what Phillip’s level of engagement or even realization of Bailey’s situation was, but the evidence was profound that something had gone badly wrong.
Which is, I hope, a polite way of saying that the 20-year old builder-grade (read: cheap n’ crappy) carpet in my upstairs hall and staircase was completely saturated with dog urine. The subfloor (again, cheap n’ crappy) beneath it had acted as a sponge, which in turn mildewed. So between the carpet, the pad, and the subfloor, my welcome back home was clouded by the literal stench of neglect. My eyes watered, my throat hurt, and my heart broke under the weight of the potential agony and expense of repairing it all.
Removing unspeakable nastiness, one tread at a time. That lump toward the back of the naked lower step is disintegrated carpet pad, seized to the tread by, um, moisture, and awaiting hand-scraping. Rusted nails and staples imbedded at no extra charge!
The great thing about total disasters is that once you get over the shock of them, you can see that there’s nowhere to go but up. Particularly when starting at the literal bottom, as I was in this photo.
The smell of my staircase was so appalling that I had to address it before I even finished unpacking. Armed with goggles, gloves and face mask, I tore out the carpet, pad, staples, tack strips and nails, inch by revolting inch. It turns out that carpet pad which has disintegrated and then soaked in urine will fuse to the subfloor in what can only be described as “foam-crete”. I’ll spare you any further description, but it was certainly a borderline hazmat situation.
Ruby surveys the damage on the landing.
Having narrowly survived the demolition of the upper layers, I retreated to my knitting chair while I waited for the subfloor to dry. There may also have been a recovery period for my hands, knees and back. The stench created by the carpet and pad abated immediately, leaving only the unfortunate visuals you see here, and the residual terror over what to do next. It was satisfying, though, to have proved again that there is no substitute in such situations for just doing something, even if it’s wrong.
Dangling by my toenails, two stories up. Can you tell by my expression that I was terrified?
The Something that I did next was to paint the upstairs hall and stairway a fresh and becoming shade of pale shell pink. Never one to exercise restraint, I went on to cover every wall of the interior with it over the course of the next weeks while I investigated options for how to address my ruined stairs and hall.
The Pinkwashing of all 1500 square feet of my house, while exhausting, was cathartic. I came to see it as a giant eraser taken to the scene of profound sadness. As a creature painfully sensitive to physical space, I desperately needed the immediate comfort fresh paint provides. Why pink? Well, why not? I love it. Pink is my new white. And it doesn’t hurt that my ex would have vetoed it, had he been consulted.
Next time: I address the simultaneous lack of budget and flooring material. Hilarity ensues.