Home Sweet Home – Part 1

About 7 months ago, my wife and I bought our first home together.  I have posted a photo here and there in various other posts of the front of my house, but I have never really discussed the renovation process that made this house into our home.  This blog will be the beginning of an occasional series that will take you through the stages of the design and process of a moderate renovation to a starter home and will concentrate on the unique design solutions that we came up with. My wife, Allie, has run a blog series discussing the renovation process as it was happening, whereas I will be looking at the details and tools used.

Flooring.

When my wife and I bought this house, we knew it was going to need some work.  The house itself was in great shape - fairly new plumbing, vinyl siding, new A/C unit, and just well cared for in general.  I don’t think either of us really knew how much work some the problem areas were really going to be.  One of the larger projects that we decided to tackle was the flooring.  Originally, the house had beige carpeting throughout.  It was okay – a bit worn down and needed to be replaced.  Truth be told, we could have probably gotten another year out of it.  But, what a pain – I mean we would have had to move all of our stuff out again to put down new carpets, so we decided to do it before we moved it.

Living Room With Original Carpeting

 My wife and I agonized back and forth over what to do.  New carpets?  How about tile?  Wood floors or laminates? Vinyl flooring would look good, at least in the kitchen, maybe?

Tile?

Hardwood?

Vinyl?

Laminate?

 We went to Home Depot, Lowes, and just about every flooring store we could find.  For a while, we hovered around laminate wood flooring as a viable option.  However, there were still questions like: could we install it ourselves, or would we need to hire someone; what would this process cost us?  Our budget was limited, and our time to get this done was even more so. As we began pulling up the carpets in the back bedrooms, we saw the beautiful stained concrete flooring hidden beneath.  We found our flooring, and it was there all along.  Allie and I were so excited – I began pulling up the old carpets and tack strips right away.

As I began pulling up the carpets in the master bedroom, figuring I would work my way out of the house, I remember musing to myself that the process was pretty easy. The carpets were laid over a foam mat cushion, which was secured in place with semi-tacky glue. I removed the tack strips with a pry bar and hammer and simply cut the carpet up into pieces with a standard utility knife.

The Husky 6 in 1 Tool Is One Of Handiest Tools In My Arsenal

Little did I know the house would make me eat my words as I moved into the hallway. Vinyl floors under the carpet. Damn. Fifty year old vinyl floors. Damn damn. 

Vinyl Layer Under Carpet

This was going to take some strategy and a lot of muscle. I started with a heat gun and putty knife, hoping this would do the trick.

If You Go With A Flat Scrapper, Make Sure You Select One With A Thick Blade!

Heat Gun

Nope – not on double layer vinyl, anyway.  Now, it was time for the big guns.  Off to Home Depot to rent an electric scrapper and to purchase adhesive stripper. 

The process was actually far more time consuming that I had thought.  First, you have to pour out the stripper, cover it in plastic, and allow about 15 minutes for the stripper to soak into and under the vinyl.  Then and ONLY then can you begin using the stripper to pull up the vinyl.  While this was labor intensive and slow, it actually went fairly smoothly. We need 4 blades to complete the job, but within a day and half, both the hallway and kitchen were tile free, but NOT adhesive free.  To remove the adhesive, we used more stripping solution, and a combination of manual scrapping tools and the electric unit.

If you attempt this process, make sure you research what kind of adhesive you are dealing with (we had a particularly nasty substance called Mastic) and always use respirators and gloves – the stripper smells nasty and will burn your throat and eyes after prolonged exposure. We used a 3M respirator body with a NIOSH P100 (2097/ Pink Disk) filter and heavy duty rubber gloves.

3M Respirator/ NIOSH P100 Filter

I would also highly recommend using a heavy duty ventilation fan, especially if you have a large space to clear out. 

However, for my small space (about 1,100 sq. ft.), 3 simple box fans from Wal-Mart did the trick (they were about $15.00 a piece).

Lasko Box Fan At Walmart For $15.00

Now, it was on to the living room.  Sure enough, more tile lay under the old carpets.  However, it was a different type of tile – linoleum.  Unlike vinyl, linoleum does not just peel up, it shatters. Allie and I spent hours literally sitting on the floor slamming hand held scrappers into 50 year old linoleum tile.  This was back-breaking work that was not easy to do, but it had to be done – we were past the point of no return. Unfortunately, I do not have “during” photos – but here are the before and after images:

Linoleum Before It Was Removed

Concrete Floor Under Linoleum

Finished Living Room

Stripe Detail

After all of the scrapping and cleaning was completed, we painted border stripes around the edges of the hallway, living room and all of the bedrooms.  We also sealed the kitchen floor with sealant, as the concrete in the kitchen was not sealed, unlike the floors in the other rooms.

I would be interested in hearing from any readers about their floor restoration projects, so feel free to add comments or links to your blogs and sites regarding your do-it-yourself projects. 

Next up: cabinet refinishing.