We live in an old house. Thanks to some record-keeping snafus down at the county courthouse, we are not exactly sure how old. The best we can tell, it was built around 1900, then there was a pretty substantial remodel done in the 1930's (or early 40's).

When we moved in to this house last November, we thought the "family room" was a later addition, and didn't have the same wood floors as in the rest of the main floor. So we kept the dark green carpet from the previous owners. I didn't like it, but there really wasn't much money left in the budget to add new flooring in that room. And with such pretty heart pine floors in the other rooms, there 's no way I wanted to lay laminate flooring in the family room.

But then, we had a cat who decided that it was too difficult to go under the baby gate to the basement for her bathroom needs. So she peed in front of my daughter's play kitchen. ew. And then off to the side, by the toy box. double ew. So we shampooed the carpet. I swear it smells worse. I think that the previous owners had had an animal or two, and the carpet cleaning jut reacitvated old smell. {insert gagging sensation here}

So I said to myself "That's it!" and pulled up a larger section of the carpet last night, trying to figure out how much money I was looking at to replace the carpet with hardwood. My husband just got a bit of a quarterly bonus this week, and I could use that for the flooring instead of sticking it in the kitchen renovation budget. But, alas, I found that the spot I originally looked at (near the basement stairs) was not indicative of the whole room. Read: we have hardwood under there! I am ecstatic. I cannot wait until Monday to call some local refinishers and get quotes. There's some sort of adhesive on the boards, but I am sure that it's nothing a professional floor guy couldn't handle.

So today's mission is to avoid the temptation to attempt ripping the old carpet out of that room by myself, with my two kids underfoot. I don't know if I am strong enough to resist that temptation. I really really really want that stinky, ugly carpet gone.

I'll let you know tomorrow if I managed to hold off on the room destruction...