I don't like Bad news.....

Especially when I am on a vacation....

Last summer when we were in Germany for the birth of Grandgirl*2,

we got a phone call from Daughter*2....

"Can we get this carpet up without dad's help, Mom?"

USA End of the Call ~ "Dad.....? I think there is mildew on the wall in the 

exercise room....what do you want me to do?"

OH GREAT!!!!! I am thinking, since I can hear her voice on the phone.

Germany end of the call ~"Get the box fan out of the garage and put it in the room, 

use the old towels to absorb as much of the water as you can first."

USA ~"There doesn't seem to be any water, but the carpet is damp..."

"Hmmmm...this might not be too hard.....but that is MUD in the window!"
And on the left, you can see where the moisture loosened the paint on the wall...

Germany ~ "Okay, do what you can, we will take care of it when we get home, 

don't worry about it...."

USA ~ "Okay, I will do that, Thanks, Dad!"

So, when we got home three weeks later, things seemed to be dry.....

A week later, there was water on the floor again, and it was farther into the room this time...

"This is gonna be a pain! Why did we ever glue down this pad and carpet?.... Oh, I remember...."
Light gray on the left is cement, the rest of the dark gray, is carpet pad stuck to the cement...

Water was still getting into the room! I put the fan in again and decided that we had to take all the storage boxes we also had in the room out to dry and to see what I could salvage.

The end of the room I am sitting on is where our treadmill and weights bench sits.

The other end of the room had a weight machine and boxes of things I needed to go through and organize / find a place for/ throw out! I hauled everything out, some 25 boxes that would hold 40 pounds of apples, a children's desk, batting for quilts, a gate for child safety,

a Nordic Track ski machine, boxes of things I use for wedding receptions
and two old computers that were in here...

That indentation in the wall? The wall was so wet my pushing against the carpet with my feet ,
to get it off the pad, pushed my body INTO the wall...

I had called several friends to possibly get some assistance, but no one was home...

I was pretty impressed with myself, emptying that room all by myself...
except the very large exercise equipment.

My hubby came home for lunch and he was amazed that I got that all done by myself.

Daughter*4 had a high fever and strep throat and literally slept all day, she

was rather surprised when she saw what I had done as well.

Hubby and I hauled the other exercise equipment out and then began the carpet saga....

Pad glued to the cement, and carpet glued to the pad.

"Why would you do that?...., you ask...."...I am not going to tell you!"

TOO LONG OF A STORY...you know I cannot tell a story without ALL the details..

But I LOVE this carpet, even after 20 years, I would buy this carpet again and

replace it with the exact carpet, stretched in the room instead, of course,
if it were still manufactured....*big sigh*...

Looking closely at the window, you can see where a water line, or two, where the window well was
filled with water, and leaked into the window, and in between the foundation
and the interior walls....but we didn't know that YET!

That carpet pad glue was SO sticky, we could NOT get the pad off of the cement without
whatever that thing in my hand is called...that is a 17' x 11' room...
not gonna be fun or quick to do. So, I push and rolled the carpet with my feet
and it would come off of the carpet pad, but still not easily.
Even when hubby and Daughter*4 pulled on it while I pushed
it would hardly budge...I was a little overwhelmed.
We got about a third of the carpet off and had to stop for awhile.
My hubby is a farmer and works six long days a week.
Luck for us, SonIL*2 and my nephew came to see us!
SonIL*2 is 6'7" and Nephew is about 6' tall.
Those wonderful 20 somethings young men pulled hard on that carpet
while I pushed with me feet, and got it all pulled up in a matter of about 10 minutes! We rolled
the carpet up, lifted it to their shoulders and took it to our deck where it could dry in the summer heat.
I turned the top side down the next day so it wouldn't fade while it dried.
This carpet was so heavy when full of water!

Look at me, talking, as usual!!!!

A day or so later, we rolled it back up and put it back in the exercise room, only to have it get all wet again when we watered the lawn really well, and found the exercise room,

our food storage room, our son's room and half our basement family room soggy with water!!!!!

It was then we realized that it wasn't just water from excessive lawn watering by the

person we had water the grass while we were gone.

There was actually a break in the water line in our sprinkler system,

and all that water went straight into the window well and down between the walls...

No more water on that section of the lawn with THOSE SPRINKLERS!!!

This is how the carpet was when it got wet again!!!

So we hauled it back out to the deck and got it dry again and put it in the family room. 

By that time the family room carpet was all dry and we had taken out the wet carpet pad so we could save the carpet. What a pain....but it worked. The food storage room we emptied and hauled and tossed and scrubbed walls and painted with Kilz and repainted with the help of 

a few gal friends of mine and a SisIL, I was so grateful!!!

After quite some time, we got the room to this stage, ready to redo it.

So, hubby tried multiple methods to get the carpet pad off the floor, and it was finally off. 

We pulled off the sheet rock where I made the indentation to see what it looked like behind the sheet rock. To our happy surprise, there was no mildew or mold on the inside of anywhere

along that wall. THAT was a HUGE relief! There was mildew along the bottom edges of one wall, 

so I vacuumed it off and bleached it and waited...

Nothing ever showed up again, I was so glad! 

About two months ago, we started the exercise room redo!!! I painted the bottom

section of the three remaining walls with Kilz, just to make sure everything would stay

clean, even though it had before.  We are almost finished with the room, but still have a bit to do.

Here is a picture of what it looked like right after we started.

The carpet layers...had to get them in when we could, which was BEFORE the paint...

Kilz painted on, carpet covered...ready, set, paint!

And at least three coats of paint later....

And what did I do while painting some of that paint on those walls?

I listened to the five hour Pride and Prejudice, what else!

When I get all the furniture in and everything settled, 

I will post about it!

I am SO tired of painting this room, and I even had help...

and a have just a bit more to do. Then, I will be done!

Hey, I will have FINISHED SOMETHING!!!!! Yeah ME!!!

Hugs to your hearts,

Betsy