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Ugh. Carpet.

I loathe carpet like it’s a pimple on my dimple.  We’re so hard on it that every carpet we’ve ever had has turned into zombie carpet within months.  It’s grimy and gross and worn down and is basically just a pet hair motel.

Yes, I vacuum. Yes, we clean it.

After 6 years, I’d finally had it with the carpet in my office.  It was a hot mess because the animals want to be with me all day long and plop their furry butts down wherever I am… which is, quite often, in my home office where I spend my creative days.

No more.  It’s gone and you can see the final result in this post.

Today, I’m going to show you how easy it is to rip it up.  So whether you are going to dive in and paint your slab, lay wood or just put down more carpet (nooooooo!!!!), you can save money and demo it your handy-dandy self.

You’re going to need some tools.

• A box cutter
• A crowbar (I used the small one)
• Work gloves
• Safety glasses
• Floor Scraper (if you are ripping up the old pad to paint or lay wood)

How to Rip Up Carpet

First, get down in one corner and use a small crowbar to pull the carpet up from the tack strips.

Once you get one corner pried up, it’s just a matter of some muscle.  Once it gets started, it’s super easy to rip out!

Just pull and pull.

Pull it loose from one entire wall and start rolling it up.

If the roll gets too large to carry, just use your box cutter to slice it from the bottom so you can carry it out to the trash in smaller peices.

Ours was manageable, so we were able to make it in one trip.

I chose not to take down the doors in the room.  The main door was fine because we could just shut it, and it wasn’t in the way.

The door to the closet was a bit more of a challenge.  But I’m super determined when it comes to making things easier, and I was able to just tuck the carpet over and pull it out from under the door.  Sorry I didn’t get a photo of us doing that.  I got to a point where I just wanted it done and threw the camera aside so I could have both hands free. Oops.

Once you’ve rid your room of the nasty carpet, you’ll be left with your carpet pad.

If you are laying more carpet and your pad is in good shape, just leave it there. Otherwise, take a floor scraper and scrape it up where it’s been glued down.

I got my floor scraper at the local hardware store for about $30.  A small price to pay for a carpet-free life!

If you want to paint your floor, I’ll show you how to get the tack strips and glue residue up soon, so check back.  It might be tommorrow.

Till then, stay bold!