So, I know the question that’s been on everyone’s mind lately.
NOT who the next nominee for president will be…
NOT what will happen on Game of Thrones…
NOT who will win the NBA Championship…
But, rather, DID THE SMELL IN KAREN’S FAMILY ROOM FINALLY GO AWAY?!?
(Please note sarcasm here.)
Anyway, the short answer is … kind of.
The smell is pretty much gone, although I still smell it first thing in the mornings and sometimes at night, if no one has been in the room. But ever so faintly.
Bottom Line: I give up on it. Unless it gets worse, it’s going to stay the way it is.
Why? After all this time, why give up on it now?
- We know it’s nothing harmful. We had the air quality tested and we did a moisture and mold test and the tests were all negative for anything harmful (or, for that matter, really anything at all).
- We aren’t going to pull up the floor for a faint smell that only really affects me. No one else smells it at all. And it would be thousands to pull up, replace, and refinish the floor.
- There is no evidence of water under the floor, in the walls, in the ceiling, or from any other source. The floor is 3/4 new and there is no evidence of any water damage or any other kind of damage.
- I have talked to the floor guy, the poly finish producer, and numerous other experts in flooring and no one seems to know what it could be.
- We need our family room back.
The Lampe Berger
…did work somewhat. I used mostly the neutral liquid in the lamp, with a little bit of the Ocean Breeze. I think it lasted three days or so before I smelled the smell faintly again. But again, it was just a faint smell. Much better than before. And I liked the smell of the fragrance from the lamp. It wasn’t overpowering at all.
Honestly, I think having the furniture and rug out of the room and letting the room air out, with the ceiling fan and air purifier running, did the most good to air out the room, reducing the smell. I am guessing that what I’m smelling is the stain or the poly, even though any off-gassing should have well been over by now.
But whatever did it – and there were many things I tried, including:
- Mopping the floor with Lysol;
- Mopping the floor (later) with Bona cleaner;
- Cleaning the fabrics in the room, including the sofa slipcover, blankets/quilts, and curtains;
- Cleaning and disinfecting all of the furniture;
- Caulking and patching all of the holes in the stairs from our breakfast room to family room, under which is the basement/crawl space;
- Moving all the furniture and the rug out of the room and running the fan and air purifier;
- Burning the Lampe Berger. I did this for three days, for 20 minutes each time (per the instructions).
Wow – that’s a lot. Clearly, I’m insane.
OK, not insane, but thorough.
Anyway, it’s time to move on. If the smell comes back with a vengeance, then I’ll revisit the problem and decide what the next steps will be. But, for now, it’s not a big thing and I’m happy we have our family room back.
Time to move on to some new projects! The projects that are on the list in the near term are:
- The Shed! The roof is leaking in the shed, and we were supposed to get our new metal roof today, but it rained! (Boo!) So, now Thursday is looking like it’s going to be New Shed Roof Day!
- Once the new roof is on the shed, I’m going to be redoing the shed top to bottom. I’ll be replacing rotted wood (inside and out), installing insulation and peg board inside the shed, and more! I can’t wait! (I talked about this in THIS POST first, when I had tools all over the house, including my messy office.)
- The yard. Our yards – front and back – look like our house is abandoned. It’s embarrassing, because our neighbors have gorgeous yards. Time to start weeding and planting out there. Plus, I want a garden!
- Scrap wood projects a go-go! I have all this scrap wood in the shed and in our carport. I am going to do at least a week of posts with projects using this scrap wood!
So that’s what’s on the horizon here. Fingers crossed that the smell remains minor and not noticeable!
To read all about mold remediation and what to do if your home has mold, click HERE:
A "recovering lawyer," I turned in my power suits for power tools and a life of DIY. I believe in merging old and new to make a house a home.
Yay! Glad it subsided …to the point it can be largely ignored…good luck!
Thank you! Fingers crossed it stays away.
Pleased to hear it’s improving – I hate mystery smells that I can’t track down.
A work of warning about insulating your shed, although you probably know more about this than I do. Last year we built a lovely new summerhouse in our garden, and because it’s in a slightly exposed location I insulated between the outer and inner walls. My intention being to keep it dry and cosy through the winter. BAD IDEA!! It was certainly dry and warm, but condensation built up and somehow soaked the insulating material between the walls and now the bottom eighteen inches of the interior walls is wet and mouldy!!! So this summer, when I ought to be sitting relaxing in my summerhouse, I will be stripping out the walls to remedy the problem. I think the answer is a need for ventilation, I probably over-insulated. But I’m sure you wouldn’t make that mistake – would you….!
THANK YOU for that word of warning! I talked to my contractor about this and he suggested not insulating it because of the point you make, and that it doesn’t make that big of a difference temperature-wise. Thank you for sharing that, and I’m so sorry you have to re-do all that! Arg! DIYers unite!!