It has been quite the week here! We learned that our countertops were not going to come in on time {ugh!} but we are finally to the point in the kitchen project where we will only be putting things back IN the kitchen {rather than just demo’ing it all out}.
To get to this point in the project, we had to finish “Phase 2” of the kitchen floor demo. Remember Phase 1? Well, that was nothin’ compared to Phase 2.
This step in the process included tearing out all of the original hardwood floors AND replacing some of the supporting subfloor.
But first, let me tell you a little story. A story of a princess that is a bit newer to the “construction” side of renovating however, she is always eager and willing to learn. She is always up for a challenge. But, this princess always has to rely on the knowledge of her handsome knight in order to complete and understand the tasks at hand.
For example, one day this princess learned her knight in shining armor had to leave the fair lady for a few days. The damsel in “distress” asked, “What can I work on while you are gone?” To which the knight replied, “See the THOUSANDS of T-shaped nails that were meant to hold down the plywood onto the hardwood floors? Those all need to be pulled out.”
The princess got about this far:
by the time the knight had returned from his voyage. After returning home, the knight decided to flex his muscles and try to pull some of the hardwood flooring out {to see what was underneath, just in case}. Lo and behold, he was able to pull up the flooring that STILL INCLUDED the T-shaped nails. He thought nothing of this triumph, but this struck quite a cord with the princess {obviously}. To which the knight replied, “Oh yeah, after thinking about it, I realized we probably didn’t need those pulled…..didn’t I mention that?”
The moral of the story: all princesses should do a little research of their own before going and kissing any ol’ frog!
Okay, now that story time is over, here are a few more pictures of us getting the hardwood floors out:
This is the original hardwood flooring that we would be tearing out. We would have loved to just refinish this flooring {as it is carried throughout the rest of the first floor}, but because the floor is sloping and because the ceramic tiles will make the in-floor heat a bit more efficient, we kept with our game plan to remove it.
The first step we took before tearing in, however, was to uninstall the toilet, remove the hardwood floors under that, and then reinstall the toilet. This way we still had a semi-functioning bathroom while we worked over the next couple of days removing the flooring!
So, do you see it? Look really close…
This is when we discovered we were going to have some repair work on the base layer of subfloor to do! Luckily it looks like the water damage happened a long time ago {and that something wasn’t currently leaking}. Also upon further inspection {in other areas}, it looked like whomever put down the linoleum attempted to patch this damage up, but “bandaged” rather than just replacing the boards!
But, we just added “replace floor boards” to our timeline and we moved on {however, I did try to go to the bathroom the least amount possible in fear of falling through the floor}.
Once the toilet debacle was solved, we moved on to tearing out the rest of the hardwood. Graham would tear it out and Jen would haul it out to the back of Gary {that is Graham’s ‘89 Dodge…sexy, I know}.
After removing boards for a while, and thinking about the next few steps, we finally admitted to ourselves that we were going to have to remove the cast iron heater in the bathroom to finish the tear out.
So, remove we did {and no, the knight did not need to call someone to come and help, the princess could handle it just fine}. Luckily, since we have been experiencing July weather in March, we have had the heat off for awhile anyways. That made draining the water out of the system easy-peasy.
Don’t lie, you also agree that the “paint job” completed behind the heater and the scariness found on that backside of the heater both SCREAM resale value! Don’t worry, both problems will be fixed!
We also discovered that along with the base flooring in the bathroom, the base flooring around the kitchen sink would need to be repaired as well. We found the same “bandage” patch job done and again confirmed that it looks like the leaky pipes happened LONG ago.
This gives you an idea as to HOW MUCH flooring was removed. That wood flooring you see at the top is the flooring going into our dining room….previous to our renovation, the kitchen floor was at the same level!
After it was all said and done {and a TON of sweeping completed} this is the base floor we had to work with going forward {aside from some of the new boards that had fixed those problem areas}.
Now, on to the {hopefully} final phase of the flooring – the installation and completion! Our goal is to have the entire kitchen and bathroom tiled and covered with contractor’s paper by the time we go to bed on Sunday. We have already started with some of the prep process, so this goal is actually looking possible! The only thing that might hold us back are dry times…more on this later.
Enjoy your weekend!
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