A husband, a crowbar, and some carpet.

Warning: what you are about to see is not your average Girl Scout project. Although it should be. How come they make badges for things like identifying a marimba but not for things like hardcore home renovation?

Our non-Girl Scouty weekend project involved tackling the creepiest thing in this picture:

Yes, that would be the carpet. We decided that enough was enough with the wall-to-wall after a persistent greasy-smoky-spicy smell lingered in the room (think high school cafeteria meets a Big Mac meets a Thai entree...am I making you hungry?) after scrubbing the cabinets and steaming the carpet not once, but three times. Whoever said "the third time's the charm" had clearly never met our kitchen carpet. Cue Rick, the crowbar, and my camera.

Look what we found behind the fridge!

(I always thought behind the fridge would be a good place to get dressed while eating pepperoni and writing letters.)

After all of the carpet was up, we decided to investigate what what was under the subfloor, since we were pretty sure that nobody in 1897 (when the house was built) promoted the general practice of installing wall to wall carpeting. We weren't disappointed!

We decided to go ahead and see what the rest of the floor looked like underneath the subfloor, noting that it was in fairly disgusting condition itself with water damage and some mildewy stains. (I'll spare you the pictures. Your dinner plans can thank me.)

Whoever had installed the subfloor had clearly never intended  to be the ones to remove it, because they had a really great time going spastic with a nail gun. I'm pretty sure we yanked up enough nails to build an entire house.

Rick: "Did they think the floor was going to jump up and attack them?" 

Here he is mid-process, looking either triumphant or deranged. I haven't decided which.

This part of the process was not what you would include in an essay entitled, say, "How I Want To Spend My Weekend." It took a long time, especially since we only had one crowbar, which meant Rick was doing most of the prying and tearing and conquering while I sipped a cocktail.

Kidding.

I honestly felt badly that I couldn't be more help, but there really was only so much I could do. So, I contented myself with yanking up nails and the perimeter tack strip and hauling away carpet and luan remains.

And after all of Rick's hard work, here's what we now parade around on as we pour cereal and reheat leftover roast:

 The floor is definitely in need of some TLC. Parts of it are painted, parts of it have knot holes, and parts of it are weirdly charred--we're thinking maybe there was a wood stove there at some point? We're excited, though, that we can refinish it as opposed to having to install a new floor altogether.

RIP, scuzzy carpet.