Unfortunately with these types of projects the prep work and later clean up takes WAY more time than the actual work does. There was quite a lot of large furniture in the room that all needed to come out, and all of that furniture had stuff in or on it which all had to be moved first. I had forgotten how difficult it can be to move this furniture especially when you are a one-woman show. The other difficulty is in trying to figure out where to put everything. Right now, I have the table and a tall shelf (all full of kitchen stuff) in the living room, a corner hutch in the hallway blocking part of my bedroom door, and miscellaneous other items cluttering up the guestroom. I hope I don't have to live with it this way for too long. My OCD will drive me crazy until it is all back to normal again.
Now...on with the demo....
Dining room side: I started with the bane of my existence...the white carpet. I guess because it was so old, it came up really easy. The hardest part was cutting the tape where it joined the carpet in the hallway (to be removed in a later project), and rolling it up. I actually kept it all in one piece rather than chop it up. I hate making multiple trips, so I guess it was better in my mind to wrestle with it all at once than make several trips. Next was the padding which also came up super easy. There were staples in that, but not the nightmare of stories that I had read about. There also was no carpet glue. YAY!! Underneath all of that was the vinyl and that too came up very easy. All it took was a cut with my fancy razorblade knife and up it came with no problem. AND JACKPOT!! Under the layer of vinyl was beautiful hardwood floor. It isn't all perfect though. There are a few minor black spots, old adhesive that clearly did no good, self-leveling concrete where the old dividing wall was and there is this horribly shoddy patch where an old duct vent had been located. This hole is the most distressing to me because it was clearly cut larger with a circular saw and then several pieces of old scrap lumber was screwed in. Not only is it hideous, but it isn't level and all of the pieces are crooked. It just makes me want to cry. Getting the carpet tacking strips up was frustrating too because they had used all different types of nails. There were "regular" nails, finishing nails and even roofing nails. Some nails were only about an inch long and others were 3 inches long. It was sheer craziness. It's like they had this big bucket of nails and just used whatever they grabbed. Anyhow, I finished most of the dining room side on Sunday night before I went to bed, and was pretty happy with the progress and even happier with the wood floor discovery.
Kitchen side: This is the part that had the most uncertainty for me, so I waited until the next day to start. There were so many layers, I had no idea what I was going to encounter. I removed the metal "S" shaped carpet stripping and then the rest of the vinyl leading up to it. The kitchen side of the floor was raised about a quarter of an inch, so I was trying to figure out how I was going to remove the wood with the least amount of mess and hassle as possible. As I removed the vinyl leading up to the kitchen side I noticed that the flooring on the bottom level was looking very different than the pretty wood on the dining room side. This was now dark and had some dark green stuff over it. I couldn't even see the wood grain. For an instant, I considered not removing the vinyl and just squaring off the "S" curve and putting a new floor over the existing part there. Then I decided that since I'm doing this, I want to do it right. I really hated having two different floors in the kitchen anyway. It makes it look too choppy, and I want one continuous floor in that room. I am SO glad I decided on that because I was shocked at what I found next.
Angry meltdown #1 - I used by pry bar to try to loosen up the wood under the vinyl. To my surprise, it popped up really easy. I used my handy dandy rotozip to cut a piece away and to my shock and amazement I discovered that under the top layer of vinyl was not 1/4 inch plywood as I assumed (since that is what you are SUPPOSED to use). It was....PANELING!! Yes, the cheap crappy stuff that people put on the walls was what was on my floor. It wasn't even screwed down. It was stapled down; every 4 square inches or less had a staple. I was so mad, but also extremely happy that I decided to not take the lazy way out and leave it there. Since it was so thin and shoddy, it came of fairly easily too. I didn't even have to cut it. All I had to do was to cut the vinyl off of the top (only glued on the edges, Hallelujah!) and then use the pry bar to pop it up and it usually broke in half from there. The tedious part came in removing all of those staples. That took longer than anything. The vinyl underneath the "wood" came up easily too once the staples were removed because apparently the staples were the only thing holding it on to the floor below.
Now comes angry meltdown #2 - apparently at some point the dishwasher or sink had leaked. Because paneling was used and not the proper stuff and no moisture barrier either, the cheap crappy paneling soaked up all of the water like a sponge. When I cut away the top vinyl to see the paneling near there it was all rotten and covered in MOLD. It was so disgusting!!! The whole bottom of the vinyl was all moldy too. I removed it as carefully as possible and took it immediately outside. The stench was awful. The paneling on the floor basically fell apart as I removed it and the staples were so rusted that they either broke or disintegrated. I was so mad that we had been living with this mold for so long with no idea, but happy that I now have it removed and gone from the house.
So, the demo is complete. Unfortunately, the hardwood flooring needs a lot of work, and I don't know if the hardwood on the kitchen side is even salvageable. My dad said just to rent a sander to see if it will clean up, but the floor needs to be repaired and not just refinished. At this point, I think it is time to call in the big guns...and hire a professional. I had actually anticipated needing a professional to complete the work, so that is no big deal. At least I saved some money by doing the demo myself, and it only took me about a good day total to get it done.
Here's a pic of what I'm left with. It isn't pretty, but honestly it is better than what I had before. At least it is all one level, flat and even. I just need to remember to wear my shoes in there because there might be a piece of staple that I missed. The white rectangle on the left is the patch I mentioned.
I figure if the floor can't be salvaged or if it will cost too much to repair then I can always put a laminate down and save some more for the redo. Because of all of the layers, I couldn't have a professional give me an estimate because there was no way to know what we would encounter until all of the crap was removed. That wouldn't be ideal and clearly increase the cost, but it could last several years while I save, so it won't be too bad.
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