This house has officially been our home for 4 months (and 1 day!), and we’re finally getting stuck into the big stuff! We spent half an hour each evening last week pulling up the edges on the carpets and yanking up the carpet grippers, then Saturday afternoon we ripped up the horrible carpets and chucked them out the window!

Then we were ready to for stage two, the most tedious and boring stage! We shuffled round on our hands and knees finding any underlay staples, carpet nails or embedded metal and pulling them out. We were both manned with a pair of pliars, screwdriver, chisel and hammer, and it actually ended up taking about half the time we thought it would.

Next up was the cleaning… oh the bloody cleaning! Hetty the hoover is my new best friend and I’ve never swept so much in all my life. The years of dust and grit that build up under your carpets really is a sight to behold. Unfortunately (or not) I didn’t get a picture of the piles of dirt but I can assure it was GROSS!

The photo above on the right shows perfectly just how incredibly lucky we’ve been – we only need to replace one floorboard (photo below on the left) and nail 2 or 3 down. Before we took the plunge and ripped the carpet up I was having regular nightmares where we’d find tens of rotten, stained floorboards! The previous owners of this house must of looked after it so well.

So for now all our furniture is back in it’s place and I’m spending a bit of time each day hoovering and generally stopping the house from turning into a building site. On Friday (yes we’re spending Easter doing DIY!) me and Dean are off to our local reclamation yard to find a replacement floorboard and to search out any other bargains. Then Saturday morning we’re picking up the sander and the real fun begins!

Where are we getting our information from?

As we’ve never sanded floorboards before we’re asking my Dad lots of questions as he’s done there whole house.

www.sandedfloors.co.uk - A website that has been recommended to me by over 20 different people and forums. We’ve downloaded there ‘How to Sand Floorboards’ video for a £5 and it’s already paid for itself!

DIY: Now How with Show How Book - A brilliant book that gives you advice on all things DIY, we managed to find it in Tesco for £6 so it’s worth keeping an eye out for it on offer.