The Snowball Effect

The snowball effect on this old house is that when you decide to do a big project...the destruction just keeps rolling,   This was the day we uncovered the sun room floor -pulling the carpet.  It feels like we have been pulling carpet - vinyl and staples from the floor for about a month...oh yeah.  We have been!

Of course the new flooring will go all the way down the basement stairs so we had to pull the final blue shag off the steps.  It revealed that the paneled wall was "firred out" and that the stairs ran underneath it.  The paneling was cut to form to the carpet and left impossible trim options so it came off the wall too.  (Ah more pink and brown brick - how lovely)

It then dawns upon me that these once wall papered walls still have the glue on them.. Do I really want all the water and TSP solution on new vinyl... uh NO - so these get washed.

At this point I am looking for a volunteer to wash the walls but apparently she thinks pointing the camera is a better job for her.   (She actually was pulling staples and nails out of the sunroom floor - we really do make a great team)

And You might as well paint those walls now - so I did - but did not take pictures yet!

This is my hobby distraction from home repair.  A couple of the Angel fish have paired up and have begun laying eggs.  Of course Clown loaches like fish eggs for breakfast - So I purchase a use aquarium and set it up for Angel breeding - we will see how they do. 

Well I am floored!

You may have wondered what we have been up to lately in this old house!

We have been working on the kitchen and it is time to get a bid on new flooring - but what where we up against.  Here is it - 8 Layers of floor!

counting up from the bottom we have

green and white tile

underlayment

vinyl

another layer of vinyl

another layer of underlayment

another layer of vinyl

and when you get to the dining area

carpet pad

and the top carpet!

and I did not count the leftover rubber backing from the former carpet that was stuck to the underlayment in the dining area

This is the leftover rubberback from some original carpet.  The white stains are the "pool traffic pattern" from the slider to the hallway.   It explains why the carpet stains would not disappear - they were coming up from the bottom...well maybe.

Both layers of underlayment were stapled down - so we spent many hours pulling staples - about ten per square of tile.  Nancy was a great help making sure the junk and dust was all taken out.

Pulling the staples and nails

This green and white tile is original to the house about 1953-54.  We could have kept it for the color - but there were lots of holes from all the staples - and most tiles are ready to come up.  We will keep them there until the new flooring is ready to be put down.

This shows the before picture of the cupboards - they are yet to be painted.

Allright!  Nancy came home from running errands - Time for some OG

This shows some of the painted cupboards!

Okay - now back to pulling staples.

One fun thing we found on a corner tile was a muddy dog print.  He must have been in there just prior to laying the floor!