Moody Master Bedroom Makeover – No More Carpet!

It’s week 4 of the One Room Challenge (only 2 more weeks to go before the big reveal!!) and my moody master bedroom makeover still looks like a disaster!

The goals for this week were to finish the painting projects from week 3, install the new light fixture and remove the wall-to-wall carpet so we could get started on the floors.

Thanks to my mother (who was visiting and did most of the work), we got all of the painting done. Baseboards, mouldings, fireplace mantel, shelves, side tables and the settee are all ready to go! Plus the walls and ceiling of course!

Just so we could see what it was going to look like, we put the new duvet* on the bed, hung up the drapes and installed my new artwork (Que Sera Sera by Carrie Schmidt)*. Thank goodness they all work together (I definitely had no plans to re-paint the room if it didn’t!).

The Lighting

But wait, you say…what is that hanging from the ceiling? It doesn’t look like the stunning sputnik style light fixture from week 2’s design plan.

Well it is…and it isn’t. It’s only the body of the new pendant.

After I got it installed, complete with ceiling medallion, I turned it on and realized that the lights on 2 of the arms didn’t work. At least I do love the ceiling medallion! I painted it with champagne paint* and it looks great against the purple ceiling.

Which means the whole thing has to come down and get sent back for a replacement. Keeping my fingers crossed that the new one arrives (and works!) before the final reveal day. Good thing I know how to install a chandelier so I can whip it up there as soon as it is delivered.  When you love chandeliers as much as I do, it’s a handy skill to have ?

At least, there was one win in the lighting department. I did get the old chandelier from the bedroom hung up in the dining room and I love it there!

I can’t wait to have a dinner party so I can create a new tablescape under it. But that will have to wait for another couple of weeks…

The Flooring

Next up on the agenda is installing the hardwood floor. This is the last room in the house with wall-to-wall carpet and I am sooo looking forward to getting rid of it. With 2 cats and a dog, it is just too hard to keep clean!

I think the hardest part of this job was moving out my bed. It is staying in the final room design because I still like it…but it is heavy!! And big!! So now I have no room in my bathroom or living room to do anything because there are pieces of the bed everywhere. I guess that will give me some incentive to get the floor done quickly!

Now that it’s out, I’m expecting quick progress on the floors.

How To Remove Carpet From Concrete

Since I’ve taken up the carpets in the rest of the house already, I’m getting pretty good at removing carpet from concrete.

In case you’re interested in the carpet removal process, here’s what I did.

1. Remove The Baseboards

First step was to remove the baseboards in one piece so that I can put them back on later. To get them off, we needed to pull the carpet off the carpet strips (those little pieces of wood with nails that hold the carpet down at the edges). After that removing the baseboards went very smoothly. No replacement pieces required this time!

My mother gave them a coat of black paint after we took them off the wall. But I’ll have to do another one after I put them back up (so that I can paint over the nail holes).

2. Take Up the Under Pad

Next I removed the under pad. There are some times that it helps to live in a builder grade house. Whoever installed the carpet didn’t do a very good job of gluing down the under pad so it came up much easier than I thought!

3. Remove The Carpet Strips

Then I used a hammer and moulding removal bar* to get under each of the nails that was holding down the carpet strips.

Pushing down on the handle popped them right out of the concrete. Sometimes the nail will pull through the wood rather than popping out of the concrete. In those cases, I just use the claw portion of either the hammer or the moulding tool to pull them out.

4. Scrape Off The Remaining Glue

I haven’t scraped the remaining glue off the concrete in this room yet, but having done this a few times before, I know exactly what I need.

The scraper attachment* for my reciprocating saw! The blades aren’t very expensive and they work much better than trying to do it by hand.

The trick is not to push down too hard or you will break the blade…just let it do all the work for you!

Well, that’s it for my progress this week, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

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Now don’t forget to visit the makeovers from all of the talented One Room Challenge featured participants as well as the rest of the guest participants. So many beautiful rooms in progress!

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Have comments or questions about my master bedroom makeover? Tell us in the section below.

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