Bedroom floor

I know it's going to be anti-climactic to post about the floor before the walls, but I can't find the pictures of the walls before they were painted. So here's a rundown of part B of our very first apartment project (part A being the walls):
BEFORE: the ugly, dark green carpet after wallpaper removal (hence the scraps of paper on the edges) and after painting (hence the dropcloth).

Big blob of paint that I spilled.

I cut/tore the carpet up in strips with a utility knife to reveal a pretty hefty carpet pad beneath. I then tied the carpet up with twine pilfered from Ikea. :P Interesting to see the wear pattern from the previous owner on the carpet pad (mostly leading from entrance to around the bed).

Another view of the room (from windows towards closets).

Close-up of the roll of carpet. Notice how I tied it like it was a pork loin, which gave it some nice handles to carry down to the dumping area.

I then proceeded to rip up the carpet pad using the same process as for the carpet. This time I had to be more careful so as to not damage the wood floors underneath.

Floor (mostly) revealed!

Voila! I love how the floors are warm and honey-colored, without too much shine. I am hoping that my preference for non-shiny floors will not lead to extensive damage to the wood, especially after seeing the wear from the previous tenant.

Rolled up carpet and padding

In the next two pictures you can see the pad remnants stuck to the staples. I didn't mind the little pieces because they helped me see where the staples were when I was removing them. I pulled up each individual one with needle-nose pliers while wearing only flip flops (my choice of footwear is not recommended!). It was kinda fun and went by pretty quickly.
You can see the thickness of the high quality pad that the previous tenant had used. Though the thick padding is easy on the feet and absorbs noise pretty well (we had to get used to the creaks afterwards), it made opening and closing the doors quite difficult. It also covered up about half the baseboard moulding which made the moulding look really dinky.

I repeated all the steps above (except for the pad removal) inside the closet as well. While inside the closet, I noticed the smell of old cigarettes, which grossed me out. I eventually washed the walls with TSP, which works miracles, and got rid of the smell completely. It also made the walls feel really clean. When all the painting is done in the main areas and we've moved in a lot of our other furniture, I would eventually like to redesign the closets to make for more efficient use of that space.

Anyway, we were in a rush to finish the bedroom because we had scheduled the bed to be delivered that week. I took a day off from work for the delivery of our sofa and chair and finished painting the last coat on the last wall, just as the furniture was delivered. I then was able to finish the floors as a surprise for Dear, who returned that night from a business trip.

Undoubtedly, the floors have been my favorite project so far. Satisfying results in a relatively quick timeframe. And destruction is always more fun than construction. :)