The Kitchen: Reno Day 1

Finally the day is here, demo day! This is what we started with, the old, dirty cabinets that tip forward and whose doors don’t close tight. The off-white range hood, the Ikea pantry and island both falling apart, the counter that incline forward so everything rolls off onto the floor. 

So we took them out! With my family’s help, the appliances went out easily, the doors came off quickly and even the cabinets were simple to remove.

And then we got to the floor. The first layer of vinyl came off in huge pieces with little effort. Underneath was this hideous yellow and brown patterned vinyl attached to plywood with glue. We decide the best course of action was to remove both layers as the plywood was only nailed down. 

With many crowbars, hammers and an ice chopper, we pried up the floor. It split into pieces and was hard on the back but for the most part it was fairly straightforward.

Once those layers were removed, it turns out what was underneath was even worse. Someone had put down tar paper or some kind of paper with mastic on the hardwood floor and it was not going to come up easily. After a failed attempt to scrape it off and loosen it with warm water, it was very apparent that this was not going to come off without great effort. Tom and I analysed the situation, trying to decide if the hardwood was worth preserving or if we should leave it and put down tile overtop.

In the end we liked the idea of hardwood, although it will be more effort up front, it will be cheaper and we won’t have to worry about tiles cracking on the uneven portion of the room. Research suggested steaming the adhesive, much as you would wallpaper, so we rented a steamer. It is slow going and after 2 hours we had little progress to show for it. 

And now we know: the previous owners really liked using tar in unconventional ways apparently. Why would anyone ever adhere something like this to hardwood flooring? Weird and irritating.