Well, after 31 Days of October and our Blog Birthday last week, I am excited to get back to our normal blog topics. When we kicked off 31 Days, I felt pretty confident that by the time November rolled around we'd be moved, living in our new house and I'd have some "before" pictures to share. That didn't quite work out and we're still looking for a home, so maybe I'll have some before photos to share in December {here's to hoping, right?!}.
In the meantime, we've worked on some hardwood floors. There was about 1100 Sq Ft of hardwood that had been covered by carpet for several decades -- and full of staples. It appeared that carpet may have been laid two different times, because some of the staples seemed older/rustier/more fragile than the rest of the staples.
The carpet and padding came up fairly quickly; but removing the staples was slow and tedious. We were using a flathead screwdriver to try to lift them out -- and we were looking at a lot of work ahead of us.
Before our second day of work we purchased this tool off Amazon {this is an affiliate link}.
There was a review that described using this office-style staple remover on hardwood floors, and for $10 I felt like it was worth a try.
Now don't get me wrong, it didn't work miracles or anything. I still spent hours on my knees hunched over a hardwood floor -- but what a difference. Seriously. So much better than trying to use that flathead screwdriver.
You just
slide the tip under the staple
and press down the handle.
Then, if only one side of the staple pops out of the wood, use pliers to pull it fully out.
And now, because a video seemed the best way to show this tool in action, here is my my right hand's small-screen debut.
If you can't see the video, click here to watch on YouTube.
So if you are planning to remove any carpet from over hardwood floors, try out this tool.
And, even though I don't have before photos of our new house for you, here is a before and after of why it is so worth your time to pull out all those staples and uncover that hardwood.
So pretty, right?!?
In other news, some people had difficulty commenting on our giveaway last week. We aren't totally sure what went wrong; but we plan to host another giveaway using rafflecopter or facebook or something as an alternative. Details to come later this week!
Has anyone removed carpet staples from hardwood before? What tools did you use?
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