New Year ~ New House (Part One)

I must admit, I am so far behind in posting to the blog - but now you'll see why.......
 

After countless weeks of whining last summer, the hubby finally gave in to me and agreed to installing wood floors throughout the house. I claimed that after all the DIY shows we have watched together, we would "sail" through this project. Oh boy, I was eating my words, and ever so quickly.

First, let's take a look at how "lovely" my tile was beforehand. The dark grout (it was originally light tan) - lovely. The chips in the tile - lovely. The sections that had broken and were glued back together with Eileen's tacky glue - lovely. Lovely, right? No, not so much!

Several years ago, when the carpeted areas in our house had since lost their "luster," we installed laminate flooring in two rooms in the house. Of course, now that we were aiming for a streamlined look, we had to start with the removal of this old flooring. This was pretty easy - after struggling to remove all the baseboards and carefully numbering them so as to put them back into place again when we were all done. Somehow some of the baseboards ended up with 15 to 17 nails in them!

Notice that Alex had to be present and underfoot during each and every stage of construction. Not an easy feat for him at nearly 100 pounds. But hey, dogs can help too, right?

I should mention that we never felt like our tile had been 'glued' down properly in many areas of the house, which led to the above assumption that we would be "sailing" through the renovation. WELL, much to our dismay when the chisel and hammer hit the first corner of 18" tile, it shattered into a great combination of tiny pieces and small chunks. Guess the thin set was a bit thicker than I thought. Not exactly what I saw happening on the DIY channel! Argghhh!

Notice, my trusty blue chisel - this became my second favorite tool. It worked pretty well if I held it in just the right spot and whacked at it with the hammer.

I particularly like how I had this notion that our home would remain 'semi-normal' throughout this process. Notice the dining table sitting on an area rug, and the bookcase still filled with reading materials! What a joke! I was so far removed from reality at this point, I needed an intervention!

My favorite tool during the project was this little gem.....
The Husky 4630 Medium Stroke Air Hammer!
Hook it up to the compressor and away you go, well, away goes the tile. Yes, shards flying left and right, dust billowing up in small funnel-like clouds, dogs with paws covering their ears, children running for the neighbors' house - well, you get the picture.

As much fun as this tool was, and as much as it eased the work, it created one GIANT MESS!

On one of my trips to the grocery store during this saga, I'm standing there giving the cashier the ten second version of the story, and she explains to me that you can "never really get rid of all the dust. It stays in your house for months, sometimes years!" I proceeded to my car and cried into my grocery bags!




After one straight week of demolition - night and day - we were to the floor prep stage. This involved dragging the wheelbarrow into the house and using the shovel to gather load after load of tile and pile it on the side of the house. Our home was a holy mess! Our side yard looked like a scrap yard. People were starting to wonder just what was going on in that crazy house.

This is a great photo - notice the dust "hanging" in the air? AND piled on top of the kitchen island? We did our best to cover everything but it was EVERYWHERE! We did practice safety, though. We purchased those attractive little masks and goggles to prevent the shards of tile from flying into our eyes and to keep from breathing in the dust. What none of us realized was after the first day, we looked like we'd be thrown into a vat of broken glass. Cuts up and down our arms and legs. Pieces of tile in our hair. Dust in our shoes. Note to self - wear long sleeves and pants next time. Oh, wait, there will NEVER be a next time!!!

We also sectioned off areas of the house to keep children, dogs, the kitty, and anything else that wandered in through the front door away from the precious wood. The boxes of wood were piled in corners of various rooms and I protected it like a new mother protects her child. I was fearing my mental health during stages of this process, since I became enraged if someone set something down on a box, sat on a box, or heavens forbid, stepped on a box.



CUTE DOGGIE PICTURE ALERT!
Alex managed to find a way to peer over the blockade, sitting up on an armchair - with Sophie and my mom's dog Taz quickly catching on. Oh, oh, wait for me!!!

I should stop here and mention that NONE of this would have been possible without the help of my wonderful family and friends. Each of them had a hand in this project - contributing tools, time and energy to our dream of beautifying our home. And I will NEVER be able to thank each and every one of them enough!

While most of the tile came up with the Husky Air Hammer, there was still a LARGE amount of thin set (don't know why they call it that - it certainly wasn't thin at our house) remained on the floor. So, we were off to Home Depot again to rent a tool to aid in our removal of this nasty stuff from our house. Allow me to introduce you to the Bosch Bulldog with a Tile Chisel Scraper and my studly hubby!

We had to work fast with this tool - we rented it for one day, and we thought this would be so easy to do. Yes, I don't know why we hadn't wised up yet! The husband worked for hours with this tool to remove the thin-set. It was awful. The Bulldog was very heavy, and once it was hooked up to the compressor became even more cumbersome to operate. Dear hubby had to apply tons of pressure to the tool to drive the chisel across the thin-set. Oh, and did I mention how much dust THIS created? As if my home could be covered in any more dust? We worked all the way up until 9:15pm (past the city ordinance by 15 minutes - we looked it up). Oh, forgot to mention how loud this tool was. You can't see them, but dear husband is also wearing earplugs. He said he couldn't hear correctly for nearly a week afterwards!



We lived on the concrete floor for about a week, giving ourselves a little bit of time to recover. And then the wood floors ACTUALLY started getting installed! This in itself, was a challenge - we were able to run the wood from one end of the house to the other, with no breaks! The look I was going for was streamlined and uninterrupted. I didn't want any breaks in the wood/direction/etc. And as always, you have to account for the wonderfully even walls. Thank goodness for all the tools my husband has collected - they all came in handy!

Next post, I'll post pictures of the big reveal.......