I know it’s been a while since I wrote on the flooring project.  It has been incredibly time-consuming, I’ll tell you that.  It’s the sort of project that you can’t ignore.  When I come home from work and find couches stacked on top of more couches in my kitchen, it’s a not-so-gentle reminder to get off my ass.  Which, ironically, I couldn’t have been on in the first place since all the couches are stacked in the kitchen. 

When last I spoke of it, I had really just started on ripping out the old floor.  Well, I did a lot more of that, and true to form, there was a fair amount of bleeding and yelling and wall damage.





I used a digging bar to get these sheets of laminate and backer board up.  It worked wonders.  The bar is very heavy.  I had some sore man-boobs.





This is another great example of when to wear gloves.  The nails on the bottom of these sheets put a few holes in my fingers.  I was wearing gloves until I ripped a few glove-tips off on nails, and then discarded them.  I ended up duck-taping over the ripped fingers and putting them back on, because I can only be stupid for so long.  Speaking of stupid.. I’m wearing flip-flops.  This is actually a step up from where I started; which was barefoot.  I’m a no-shoes-on-in-house guy, and it took a little time for my mind to transition from “you’re in the house” to “you’re in a construction zone”.



Here you can see where the dividing wall was when the house was built.  The wooden floor used to be the dining room, and where there is no wooden floor, there was an extra layer of old-school linoleum, because it was the original kitchen.  We’re talking like three kitchen-additions ago, here. 



Apparently I neglected to take (or can’t find) pictures of the stripped-bare floor.  This one is off of my phone.  You get the idea.  I had to take all the radiator covers off to get at the flooring underneath them.  Now the whole subfloor is exposed, though.  It’s tongue-and-groove 3/4” planks.  I went around and pounded in some nails that had wiggled their way loose over the last 75 yrs.  Overall, the floor was in good shape.  Except for the bathroom.



Yeah, that’s floor rot.  All around the toilet.  It was an unwelcome discovery after removing the toilet, sink, and all the contractor-grade tile.  I could push my hammer right through the wood.  I’ll probably do a brief post later on how I fixed that.

At this point, I’ve got all 800-some-odd sq ft of old flooring ripped out and piled in front of the front door, including carpeting, padding, the original hardwood, and two layers of laminate.   Most of it is still there.  Along with a toilet.  [sigh].  I’m that guy, now.

Next up; prepping for and doing the install!

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Ok… just a quick post to get this ball rolling again.  It’s been a busy fall over here.  We have the ongoing flooring project at home, which I’ll update everyone on at a later date.  The big news, though, is this: Dani and I have recently acquired another house full of projects. 

Let's just let that sink in for minute.

We’re renovating a house in Pikesville, MD, in order to rent it out.  Because, hey.. one house full of projects isn't enough!  It hasn’t had many updates since being built in 1956ish, and we’re on an abbreviated time scale trying to get things done over there.  The process of acquiring it and beginning demo has taken most of my free time of late, hence the lack of any new content, here.





I’ve got some early demo photos to share, though!  Everybody loves demo.





Here we have the kitchen; early-demo.  The cabinets are old-school metal ones.  The floor has 3 layers, and I was incredibly nervous of floor-rot underneath it.  It turned out to be in great shape, though.






And here is the pre and post-demo of the utility room.  Our plans, here, are to update the electrical and plumbing, new walls, cabinets against the back wall, and something neat for the ceiling….



We’re removing these ceiling joists and building a new bump-out wall against the exterior of the original house.  This will go all the way up, and tie the utility room addition to the exterior of the house to recoup the strength we’re losing by removing these ceiling joists.  Then we’ll have a nice tall ceiling that will give this space some breathing room and make it feel bigger.



This is where the new bumped out wall will go. 





And lastly, the partly-demo’d kitchen.  A long way to go in these two rooms, but it is where the bulk of the work is happening for right now.  Over the next couple of months I’ll be redoing the electrical and plumbing, walls, ceilings, cabinets, lights, sinks, appliances… this all feels so familiar!

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The first time Dad visited us in our new house, we were walking around together talking about the various things we had plans for.  One of the these was a desire to remove the carpet and the vinyl flooring underneath it in the living room/TV room and replace it with matching hardwood to what we found under the carpet in the family room/fireplace room.  At this point, Dad did a very smart thing.  He pulled out one of the AC vents and inspected the edge of the existing hardwood flooring we hoped to match. 

 

 

“Well that’s not going to work.  Your floor is too thin”.  Indeed it is.  I had just assumed that a house build in the mid-30’s would have a 3/4” thick floor, but for some reason, this is not.  From one perspective, this is a relief.  I don’t have to feel bad about tearing it out, since it is too thin to refinish.  And I don’t have to try to match it, now, either.  On the other hand, though.. it just feels awful to tear out an old floor. 

 

I found an odd lot of some 3/4” thick Brazilian Koa (it’s not really.. they just call it that) at Lumber Liquidators.  It’s full of some damaged pieces and lots and lots of short pieces.  I’m a tad nervous about it.  That is an understatement.  The truth is, though, that we can’t really afford to do what we really want to do.

 

 

I really like the look of wide plank mixed-width flooring.  This is white pine.  It’s grown, harvested, and milled right here on the East Coast.  But at $6-9  sq ft, it’s not in our near (or not-so-near) future.   At $2.45 a sq ft, though, we could swing the cost for the nearly 1200 sq ft of the stuff we bought from Lumber Liquidators. 

 

I decided to rip up a chunk of the flooring in an out-of-the-way corner so that I could transfer all the new flooring into the house. 

 

 

Ugh.  This process is not fun.  I did find this on the bottom of a few of the flooring remnants. 

 

 

 

So now I at least know a little bit more of the history of my current flooring.  After a few hours of work, I had a section cleared, de-nailed, and cleaned up.  The next morning, a friend helped me unload the trailer and get it in the house.

 

 

 

 

A few days later, I attacked another section of the floor.  These nails suck.  I have spent enough time crouching and shuffling about the room to qualify as an Old Bay Crab. 

 

 

When I was done, I cleaned it up with my venerable shop vac.  Which may have been pointed into the fireplace when I turned it on.  And may have then sprayed fireplace ash all over the whole room.  And consequently the cleanup may have taken about an hour.  sigh.

 

 

 

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This job was awful.  Possibly the worst part of the whole remodel so far.  The tiles just wouldn't come up.  I rented a jack hammer and my Dad and a friend Eric worked at it all day while I was at work.  When I got home, 30% was still left, and it took me till very late to get that off.  I don't think I took many pictures of that part.  It was too frustrating.

The next day I rented a belt sander used for restoring hardwood floors and used it to get all the old grout off the floor.  That was another big project.

Lastly, I used floor leveling compound on all the holes and gouges we put into the subfloor using the jackhammer and let that dry over night.

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She's totally gutted, now.  Pictures speak better than me for this one. 

Notice that metal vent pipe to the right of the window?  Totally unused and completely rotted.  It will come out.

I ended up removing all the electrical later and starting over

There's a wall behind the walls in this room.  And a ceiling over the ceiling, too.  That wonderful color scheme there is the original wall.

Taking out the closet has really changed the flow of the whole first floor.

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Dad’s only been in town for a day, but he started eyeing up this closet when I told him we were going to take it out. We want the entryway from the kitchen to the rest of the house to be bigger. It's the major choke point on the main floor, and the closet doesn't really make sense there, anyway.

 

Those are normal clothes, by the way. He hasn’t changed into demo clothing. To be honest, though… if he did it would look exactly the same, but with dingier clothes.

This closet was actually added at some point when the kitchen was expanded. Originally, the room Dad is kneeling in was part of the kitchen, and the space the kitchen is in now was a small breakfast nook.

 

Oddly, the walls of the closet are painted particle board. This made taking it out easy, though, so no complaints there. We were happy to find no serious complications in the walls.  Just your basic move-the-switches kind of deal.

It was exciting to see through to the living room with all that space!  I am already happy with the decision to rip out that closet.

 

 

 

The original exterior wall is clearly visible; as well as the window that is now storage in the bathroom.  These narrow “studs” are going to be problematic, though.  Not enough room for outlets.

 

Just like with the fireplace project (still ongoing, by the way), time for some plastic sheeting to keep the dust down.

Here you can see the dimension difference. We'll use about half of that reclaimed space to widen the entryway

 

Nearly done with cleanup after a long long day of demo. 

 

 

 

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The fateful day is here.  It is time to start demolition.  We bought a WonderBar and a wrecking bar, and attacked them with a deadly fury. 

 First Cabinet is out!

 And there it sits

At this point I'm still trying to save the lowers.  I give up eventually.



That thing came down a bit scary.  My wife had a very concerned look on her face as I rocked it back and forth, slowly loosening it from its moorings.  I placed a couple cabinets we'd already removed on the opposite side I pushed from, so that it would have something to land on.  I just kept prying at that thing until, at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside. 

Just in case we still want to make some tea.




After knocking the thing over, I found this where the Fluorescent under-cab lighting was.  It's all charred and brittle.  Too close!  I threw the ballast from the light into the trash pile right away so I wouldn't mistakenly use it somewhere else.

A buddy Jessie had some fun taking out this piece.  I ended up destroying it later.

Notice the lack of subfloor under the cabinets?  Just the original planks.

That took about 3 days of after-work destruction.

Many gallons of midnight oil were spent, here.  I'm glad to see that picture, though.

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