We were remodeling the inside of this 1940's era home to attract younger buyers. This home is located in Royal Oak, Michigan and it is on the verge of becoming a younger audience that appreciates space, (they are into lofts). The previous owners made their point known that they wanted to see the home preserved pretty much the way it was even though they sold it.
Two areas in particular they expressed a concern over were the old bar in the basement with the tacky nautical look and the dogs area. The dogs had their own room in the basement and it was even carpeted. The deal here was that the carpet was considered a one of a kind classic.
We could do whatever we wanted to the house because it was now our property. After exchanging a few pleasantries and getting the keys it was decided that Fido's carpet -- had to go !! It was a butterscotch colored carpet with huge stains and it smelled terrible. In fact, it made the whole basement smell terrible. The dogs had full run of that basement for years and the only other thing down there was the washer and dryer.
So our guys went to work and cut the carpet out off the floor. And the smell started to go away after we hauled up big slabs of it. Whoever installed this carpet had no idea what they were doing. Some of it was stapled into the floor and other parts of it were glued with some sort of strong adhesive. Pulling it up left some of the black nap stuck to the surface. So we had to get putty scrapers and scratch it off.
It took about a week for the smell to completely go away but it didn't go easy. We had to get fans down there and scrub the walls too. We ended up leaving the panels but I wanted to tear them off near the bar.
Every other day the original owner would stroll by the house to see what we were doing. I know he was mortified what we did to his house but we wanted to sell it. And to sell it meant getting rid of those smells.
More on this story later
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