Tackling the carpet

When we moved into our townhouse almost 11 years ago, we were not extremely impressed with the carpet. The sellers had replaced all of the carpet in the house before putting it on the market, but they had installed the cheapest carpet they could find. We bought the house during a slump in the market, and the house had been on the market for 9 months when we put an offer on it. So the cheap carpet that had been new had endured 9 months with two large dogs. It was worn (except for where all of their furniture had been) and there were stains. It took us several years before we were ready to replace the carpet. We were finally motivated after we painted the house and not only had the dog stains, the sippy cup stains (from all of those babies and toddlers we had in those 11 years), but now paint stains.

CandyMan replaced the carpet while the kids and I were spending the summer at my mom's house a few years ago. He picked a very good-quality carpet.....but in a color slightly lighter than I would have preferred. Light carpet and little kids don't mix well. Enter back in the sippy cups, the dirty shoes, the snacks that slip into the family room from the kitchen....and the carpet is stained again.

Add onto the normal childhood stains all those childhood illnesses....like the two times kids have thrown up on the carpet this week. Have you ever noticed that the smell of vomit is extremely difficult to get out of anything? I have scrubbed the two spots with carpet cleaner several times, but it wasn't until I scrubbed it with ammonia that the smell came out.


I put the kids to work on the family room the other day. I tackled the smelly stuff myself. What I learned: Kids love to help scrub the carpet but it's not a good idea to give the can of carpet cleaner to a 9 year old. They used the entire can. My house smells like carpet cleaner now, but it looks a lot better!

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