You are sweet. That bathroom has carpeting. That has probably been there since the 1970s. Eep.

Wearing my seat belt is so ingrained in me that if I'm, say, just moving a car in a parking lot, I get uncomfortable if I'm not wearing a seat belt. A few years ago I test drove a car that had no seat belts - it felt so freaky driving it knowing I was unbelted....

It must have been universal insomnia night.

Not me! Pulling carpet staples out of a hardwood floor for hours, 2 nights in a row, seems to be an effective soporific.

But holy crap, my right hand is awfully sore, as is my forearm. Pulling staples out of a hardwood floor is very satisfying, but quite a workout.

Ginger, your suggestion in my LJ* is probably what I'm going to attempt for the cleaning, because it's gnarly dirty, with a lot of built-up ick and fur. And sticky in spots. Not melted-sugar-sticky; just the kind of tacky-sticky that a dirty wood floor can be after being under carpet for 5+ years.

*(I posted in my LJ, wondering the best way to clean a very dirty hardwood floor that's been under carpet for 5+ years, in addition to wondering the best way -- *without refinishing,* because we don't have the time to do that right now -- to even out the light-colored stains on the floor.

This is how the dining room floor looked immediately after the carpet came up (pre-vaccuming, pre-sweeping, pre-cleaning of any sort). The very light-grey-ish patches were just dust/crud/powdered bits of the carpet pad that came up with sweeping. The big dark stain at the top of the picture bothers me way less than the many small very light stains.)

On the GF dad front, he has been home exactly one week after a 3 week hospital stay. He started running a fever last night, so they're re-admitting him today. Fuck.

Happy birthday, omnis!

GC, that is too bad.

That's going to take some work, Teppy, but it's a beautiful floor. I suspect you'll need the clean-and-strip stuff.

If the dark spot really bothers you, you could try taking it down to the wood below the stain and then doing some experimenting to match the color to the rest of the floor. This is a case in which tinted varnish might be the answer, rather than stain. I once used three different shades of stain and tinted varnish to match the top of a table to the rest of the wood. (In a previous life, it had been owned by an inept person obsessed with nail polish.) No one has ever suggested that I'm not obsessive.

It must have been universal insomnia night.

I'm having car worries, of the sort where I wonder if the clutch linkage is going to snap every time I shift. Exciting thing during rush hour. We've got a line on some new parts for my old car, but I've still got to get back and forth to work in a town that thinks bus service is for the under class.

If the dark spot really bothers you

Not at all, actually. Any stains around the perimeter of the room will inevitably be under furniture. We'll also have to have some throw rugs. So it's mostly those weird light-colored stains that trouble me. They're right in the middle of both rooms.

I suspect you'll need the clean-and-strip stuff.

The Bruce stuff? (Hello, Bruce! Hello, Bruce!) (....shit. I'll end up singing the goddamn Bruces' Philosophers' Song while I'm cleaning.)

Steph, I was watching an episode of Flip that House (with a smart flipper) and the woman had hardwood floors in the house, but there were some bad stains that they couldn't get out. She bought pieces of wood that matched the existing floor fairly closely and had it put in at one spot, then stained the floor a darker color. After it was finished you couldn't see where the flooring had been replaced.