Flooring

We are picking a wood stain for the floor, which is exciting! it will be so nice to have them all uniform - really feel like one unified house again!  

But in the process i have learned something perhaps troubling about myself.  You guys, i am racist ... 

AGAINST CATS!  They are the worst.  Even ones that look like this 

i can still hate them even if i think they are cute

So when we moved in we knew we would be having to deal with the remnants of a cat house, and i am not talking about some charming budget brothel, i would have preferred that. i mean a house that was long occupied by cats. disgusting cats, or maybe more accurately negligent owners who did not take adequate care of their cats and never cleaned up their cat mess!

When we first viewed the property the smell was overpowering.  Magically, my allergies did not go insane, but it was super gross, everywhere.  The worst of it was in what will now become my office. It had a nasty pink carpet that made a poor substitute for a litter box.  There was a litter box - overfilled if i recall - and even featured in the listing pictures. But the pink carpet seemed to be the preferred commode of the cat and by the obvious frequency of it's use, i would infer that the owner did not mind the arrangement.

a nice 4 bd, 2 ba, 1 bx home

pink carpet - exhibit a

Jon and friends - again Drew i believe - gallantly cleaned out all the carpet in the house - including the cat pee soaked sections.  To give reference, the occupant and cat owner had moved out in late November, we took possession in mid January - the carpet was still damp with pee.

At any rate ridding that room of smell has been a struggle.  Jon tried EVERY product on the market and every wacky theory on the internet - but if you have more, please share, there is nothing we will not try! - and nothing worked completely.

Once the crew started working on the house, ripping open walls, cutting drywall etc.  the smells of construction took over and the cat pee dissipated. For a short while we could forget about the problem.

We had to spring for replacing the office baseboards, a project we had hoped to forgo, as the pee stench was still evident there. Now we are doing the floors.  A fun project that will really have a huge impact on making the entire space feel fresh and new.  That is except for the pee stains.

Even the sanding did not take out the stain entirely.  The stains have soaked through the carpet, through the padding and permeated through the floor boards.

It is looking like we will have to replace these floor boards - in the office and perhaps in the hallway as well - as the varnish cannot cover these stains.

I am thinking perhaps i could just paint the floor in the office - cover it over with something opaque, but i don't think that will work for the hall.

I do have one positive thing to say about cat pee - one contractor we met with for the project, upon walking though the upstairs of the home, declared that the cat pee probably saved us $30k-$40k in the home price as who the fuck else would even consider the space.