Getting ready for new hardwood floors

When we bought the house it had laminate wood floors.  Not Pergo but some other fake wood like product.  We will be having new hardwood installed in the kitchen and main floor hallway so we decided to tackle floor preparation next.  

This task is really two separate tasks.  Step one is to remove the existing floor and step two is to fix the floors so they are level.  There are actually several places in the house where we have dips or slants in the floor.  The dining room floor drops off about an inch towards the living room (this is the problem we have been jacking the house up to fix but there is still a slant).  There is a pretty large low spot in the bedroom that we will use for an office also.  

First, since the kids were home over break we decided it would only be right if we got some free labor out of them.  We had a ripping out party in late December - 12/23 to be exact. 

This is what we started with - fake wood all through the Dining Room and Kitchen (not shown) 

Using various pry tools the floor came up pretty easy.  Well easy in my opinion.  Mark and Matt did most of the work.  I just had to haul the trash out to the dumpster!

After the fake wood was removed - Dining Room looking into the Kitchen

The white stuff that you see on the floor in the middle of the picture is some kind of leveling material.  The kitchen floor had a layer of linoleum on it which made it an 1/8th of an inch higher than the Dining Room.  Rather than bring up the Dining Room floor they made a transition to compensate for the difference. We also found that the Dining Room and Kitchen are higher than the Front Hallway so we will be installing plywood to fix that before the new wood floor is installed. 

Emily got tired of hauling and decided she should pry some flooring up

 While we were taking out the flooring, we also took out a lot of wall and door trim.  It is all piled up in the picture below.

Working hard while Dixie sleeps in the background

The Dining Room to the Hallway wasn't the same either - the Hallway is 1/4 inch lower so more leveling mess.  I scraped all that white stuff away and we will cover the hallway with plywood to make it flush with the Dining room.

Teamwork - Emily pries it up, Matt kicks it (with a sprained ankle) to break it off, Mark advises and I take pictures.

Almost got it!

It takes two to pull it apart!

After we got the flooring all taken out, we met with the hardwood floor guys who advised us on how best to prepare the floor for the new wood.  In the dining room, some kind of pressed board was used.  It looked like saw dust mixed with glue and formed into rectangles.  It is not a good surface for installing hardwood as the nails blow right through it so we had to remove that subfloor.  We took the opportunity to fix the slope in the floor as well and installed new plywood so we now have a good strong subfloor for the new hardwood.  

New Dining Room Plywood Subfloor

Looking back into the kitchen

 The Dining Room area is ready to go but we still had a challenge in the Hallway and Kitchen.  That challenge was hundreds of staples that remained behind when we pulled up the fake wood floor.  While this job was really annoying I was happy to have it completed as I was getting really tired of my shoe getting caught on them as I was walking around.  Nothing like feeling like you are tripping all the time.  

Tiny staples that had to be pounded in or pulled out

 Mark chose to pound them in.  I pulled them out with a side cutter.  I tried pounding them in but half the time I missed and the other half I was pounding them in sideways so then they weren't flush.  In my completely anal-retentive way I wanted the floor perfectly smooth when I was done.  It gave me a feeling of great accomplishment.  Oh the little things in life.....  

Mark using a heavy hammer to pound the staples in

When we got to the back hallway we discovered that there was an area in front of the door that was covered in linoleum which was making it a 1/4th of an inch higher than the rest of the hallway.  I pulled all the staples out and then scraped up all the linoleum.  It was kinda hard work but it didn't take all that long to get it done.  Part of the subfloor also had substantial mold and rot so we cut it out and replaced it.

Back Hallway with moldy rotten subfloor replaced and linoleum removed

The entire surface is now staple-free from the front door all the way through the hallway, dining room, kitchen, laundry room and back hallway. The only thing left to do is put in the hallway plywood and the floor will be ready for hardwood.  

We had other places to fix the floor too.

Dip in the office floor - before 

We could put a long board across the floor and there were places that it did not touch the flooring.  Not good. I can just see my pencil rolling off the desk every time I set it down.
  

We used this board to see how low it was

  

Newly installed level subfloor 

The subfloor in the front hall closet as well as the upstairs hallway had to be replaced as well because it was the "sawdust" board.  Not sure why the proper subfloor was used in some places but not in others.  Can't quite figure that one out.  

Upstairs hallway partially complete 

Another view of upstairs hallway with new subfloor 

  

New subfloor in front hall closet - ready for hardwood

Emily's bedroom gets a makeover

Why is it that kids always want to pick the color of their bedroom?  We think its great fun to let them.  Hence the sunshine yellow of Matt's room in our Hightower house and Emily's Botanical Tint painted room at Comet Circle.

It started off with an amazingly bright blue that had been touched up with SPRAY PAINT.  I kid you not.  Someone used spray paint to possibly cover imperfections in the paint and we were left with something much worse.  The runs and the smooth sheen stuck out like sore thumbs on the walls.  We didn't think a paint color existed, besides black, that would cover this color so we had to prime the walls first.  

Emily cutting in with the primer

 Some crack repair was required as well.  I think we may have caused several cracks when we jacked up the first floor to fix the sagging floors.  There were also nice holes from where the curtain hardware had been installed and subsequently removed.

Mark repairing cracks near the window

 Our work was completed on Day 1 after the drywall spackle and primer was applied

Spackle and primer drying

 At the beginning of Day two we still had two spots near the window that needed more attention - stubborn cracks that got an additional coat of spackle.  We painted around them and then finished up later.

Ready for paint color

Emily finding multiple ways to use a paint pan and roller - defending her castle

 The paint went on surprisingly well.  I thought for sure that we would have to apply two coats to cover the dark color and the spray paint but that was not the case.  Only had to do one so it was a super quick job.  I have an extra gallon of paint if anyone has a hankering for "mint ice cream" walls.

Mark finishing up the final coat

We learned that the green paint would have covered the dark blue even without the primer coat.  Not sure how it would have been over the spray paint but it was amazing to me that it covered as well as it did.  Below is a picture of Emily's closet.  We used this area as a place to clean our brushes and rollers of excess paint.  Eventually I will rip out all the shelves, paint the closet white (so that we don't have to paint it every time we change the paint color in the room - yes I anticipate re-doing this room when it is no longer Emily's - HAHA) and rebuild all the shelving.

Emily's Bedroom Closet 

It's been awhile

So sorry to all of you who have been checking my blog only to find it not updated.  We have been making a little progress but it seems to be moving very slowly and not all of it is visible.

I just re-read my last entry to catch up on what was happening when I last wrote.  It was almost 2 months ago.  Emily came home from Nazareth College, our progressive dinner was a great success, the High Tower buyers bailed on the sale after the inspection, we enjoyed a wonderful holiday season with friends and family and we even did a little work on the house.

After we declared success on the 2013 siding adventure, we moved inside and started tackling little things that would help us seal up the house and make it warmer.  First on our list was installing foam insulation on the cinder block wall in the basement.  Not only did it make it look nicer (really cleaner) it was a great feeling to be putting something into the house instead of taking it out.

The pile of foam insulation had been sitting on the floor for months.

It was super easy to put up for the most part.  We cut it to size and glued it up.  The hard part was getting the wall clean from the older insulation that we removed.  But once that was done, up went the new stuff and here's what it looked like:

Family Room Wall newly insulated

We did the bathroom wall as well:

This space will eventually be a bathroom in the lower level

All the while watching Sunday afternoon football:

Note the one of a kind TV Stand!

Since Emily was home we decided to paint her bedroom.  No such luck for Matt since the picture above is actually his bedroom - beyond the pink bucket on the left.  We have a bit of work to do before his room will be ready for paint..... like build the walls!

I will write about Emily's room in my next post.