A Houseplant Rotted My Subfloor & Here’s How I Fixed It

A few years ago, I purchased my first ever real plant baby – a fiddle leaf fig tree to be exact.

Watching that little sapling develop into a show-stopper of a tree gave me such an inspiring sense of pride, I decided that I needed to go out and buy plants for every single corner of my house.

Essentially, I became a full-fledged, crazy a$$ plant lady!

And while having live, growing greenery in every single room of my home has been a key pillar in making my house feel like a reflection of my earthy preferences and interests (not to mention giving me the mental satisfaction of better air quality), I made one fatal mistake…

Houseplants on Carpet Equals Rotted Subfloors:

Because I don’t want you to ever have to experience this sort of misadventure (aka: every homeowner’s nightmare), today I am sharing my cautionary tale of houseplants and rotted subfloors.

It all started this summer while I was having my nasty, old 1980’s master bedroom carpet replaced with a glorious new textured variety .

Out running errands while the carpet installers began their work , I received a pretty stressful phone call not long thereafter.

After removing the contents of my bedroom to install my beautiful new carpet, peeling back the old material, the crew discovered that my subfloor had rotted and needed to be replaced. This water damage was all due to one of my house plants.

For God knows how long (seriously could have been years), my plant baby had been leaking water on my old carpet.

Not only was I shocked as there was never any visible sign to me that the pot was leaking (the carpet was simply absorbing the water), but I was also a bit peeved because I thought I had taken all precautions to avoid such an incident..

Not only was my tree double potted, but I also had an additional means of defense- a plastic, planter tray (which was placed underneath the double-potted plant). Unfortunately, both the pot and the tray had cracked. While I will never really know what caused this… I intuitively see my children and/or my pets as the potential offenders.

While rotted subfloor are two words no homeowner ever wants to hear, I was super relieved to discover that upon further investigation, the water never impacted the actual joists. As a result, the endeavor turned out to be an easier fix than we had first anticipated.

How Much It Costs to Replace a Subfloor Board:

Knowing nothing about subfloor repair, we did choose to hire the job out. But after watching the contractor replace the board, I know my husband could have easily done this himself (and we could have saved ourselves around $150 in labor).

In the end, it was really just a matter of unscrewing the existing nails on the damaged subfloor, removing the old board and then replacing it with a new board (also making cuts for the air vent).

Moral of the subfloor fiasco:

Once my beautiful new carpet was finally installed, I made a vow to myself…

Never will I ever put a free standing plant on carpet (never…ever f*cking again)!

Looking back at this experience, it is super freaky to think that I wouldn’t have even known the plant was leaking if I had not replaced my carpet to begin with .

Just a reminder that the universe always has our backs.

And in lieu of a real plant baby (I literally threw the baby out with the bath/plant water), I now have this super deceptive faux fiddle leaf fig tree which you can read all about here.

Thank you so much for stopping by this week and putting up with my antics yet again.

Now get out there and design some good vibes along with a fabulous life.

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