Wishful Thinking

I know I told you that I might be redoing a piece of furniture. Unfortunately, on my only day off, the weather is not cooperating. Ideally, it should be over 65 degrees outside to spray paint. It only hit 62.

I know, I know, 3 degrees shouldn't make a big deal, but when it comes to a big piece of furniture, I know that trying to fix any mistakes will be uber time consuming.

So I'm putting it off for another day. I have a string of days in the 70s coming up, so hopefully I can sneak a quick painting in.

Anyways, not one to let a perfectly good day off go to waste, I've been working on something else.

These were my stairs leading to the basement (we have a partially finished basement):

You don't need to say it.

It's ugly.

Ugly carpet.

Ugly (dark) paint.

My husband tried making the finished room of the basement his "man cave."

I told him that if he was going to have a man cave, he needed to do all the work to make one.

He gave up. He's the one that decided to paint the room that awful dark blue with powder blue trim. I hope you didn't think that was my taste!

I started ripping up the carpet, and to my horror, every single $%&*%#@ inch of that carpet was glued down.

I..hate..carpet..glue.

In case you don't fully understand:

I HATE CARPET GLUE.

Nothing gets it off easily.

Nothing gets it off semi-easily.

Now, instead of a gross musty carpet on the stairs, I have a sticky residue on them.

(Which means that I have sticky crap on my feet, shoes, pants, etc.)

I have been working tirelessly for 2 days, but I've only managed to get 1 1/2 stairs done. There are 11 stairs total....

Things I've Tried

1. Goo Gone

2. Goof Off

3. Industrial strength adhesive remover.

4. Paint stripper

5. Sand paper

6. Every SoniCrafter attachment known to man

7. Mineral Spirits

The only thing that seems to work is the sand paper, but it takes an entire sheet for just 1 square foot. I would end up spending $100 just on sand paper....

It may take me an entire month to finish these stairs. I probably won't get many more projects done, but I will definitely be giving you updates/sneak peeks!

I'm envisioning white stairs, a white railing...

...and a softer wall color like this...

...or maybe this.

Does anyone have any suggestions on getting carpet glue off?

I've heard something about boiling water, but I'm not about to dump a pot of boiling water on wood stairs in a basement. That's just asking for trouble...

Any help would be appreciated!