More work than it seems: removing carpet from hardwood floors

The idea seems simple: once you know there's wood floors under some carpet, you should remove the carpet. The upstairs of the house does - or did - have carpet everywhere except two for two of the bedrooms and the bathroom. The rest of this floor, including the hallway, was covered in some medium- quality carpet. We assumed there was wood in the other rooms but didn't know.

After we got the keys at the closing, we did a little more exploring in the house to see what was really there. We found, excitedly, that the main bedroom (I suppose you can call it the master suite) had wood floors underneath.

 
The main floor, however, had carpet over some cement/subfloor. This meant we could remove the carpet upstairs, and wait to see how much a new floor would cost for the main floor. One of the other bedrooms has wood floors as well, but under the carpet and pad, appear to have been coated with an adhesive, that is now a brownish/red.

To remove carpeting, start by pulling it up and off of the tack strip.  After the carpet has been rolled and removed, pull up the padding which is usually stapled in.  To remove the tack strips a hammer and pry bar (or cat's claw) is a necessity.  Slide the pry bar under the wood - aided by a hammer - and then leverage the nails up and out of the floor.  After this was accomplished, it is time to go around and pull up any nails that were left behind.  And then the removal of all the staples.  This last step is best done by a needle-nose pliers since it can get a good grip on the metal.

Later posts will detail stripping out padding glue and the final refinishing job.