November 25, 2009

Dining Room Floor: Removing The Old Linoleum

Let's see. The last time we were talking about the dining room, I was painting while DH was crawling around under it. Those tasks accomplished, the next step was to remove the old linoleum.

When we first bought the house, it had ugly wall-to-wall pink carpeting. (Glimpse of that here) Not that I have anything against pink, but to me it's an accent color, not a main attraction. Before we moved in, we pulled out the carpeting in both the living and dining room. The living room revealed a nice hardwood floor in pretty fair condition, the dining room floor was covered with linoleum. (Photos of that in this post.) Before we can put down the new hardwood floor, that has to come up too.

Old linoleum half pulled upWell, the sunlight coming in through the window is a bit of a bother here. But we have half the linoleum off the floor and rolled up ready to remove. The second half is still to go.

Close-up of the paste jobThe linoleum was put down with some sort of tarry paste, right over the tongue and groove floor boards. This is the only floor the dining room has. There is no subfloor. You can see the underside of these boards in the crawlspace. (Photo here.)

Scraping the stubborn stuffThe linoleum came up pretty easily, but we did have to scrape some spots.

Dining room - kitchen thresholdDan also took up the thresholds between the rooms. This gives us a pretty good idea of what we'll have to deal with when we do the kitchen floor. The ceramic tiles were mortared right to the floor boards, so I suspect it will be a real chore to redo this floor.

Linoleum gone!Once the linoleum was removed from the dining room, we he tackled the hallway.

What was under the hall carpet.Under the pink carpet was an ugly old linoleum which stirs up vague memories of my childhood home. This had to be pulled up as well, but it was really glued down and required a lot of scraping.

Hall floor scraped & readyFor right now, we're only going to put the flooring down on the prepared areas. We will wait on the remainder of the hall until after we calculate how much flooring we have left. Our original estimate left the linen closet in place. Now however, we are considering removing it. More on all that later.



14 comments:

Renee Nefe said...

wow you're really knocking those projects out!

I see the snoopervisor is on the job...did he give you a nap of approval? ;o)

Theresa said...

It's a miserable job renovation is. While scrpaing and preparing is awful with lino, I think carpet removal is my least favorite. that and 5 layers of wall paper on horse hair plaster.....
Hope work is in stoppage for a few days and you'll enjoy your first Thanksgiving in your new home!

MiniKat said...

I helped my mom redo a floor in their house. The family room is on a concrete slab that originally had asbestos tile on it. Then that had been covered with really nasty carpet.

Once HazMat came and removed the tile she laid a ceramic tile floor on the slab.

Laying the new tile was lots easier than people were making it out to be. It was just time consuming waiting for the grout to dry.

katrien said...

I'm impressed!

We redid our floors (about 1100 sq f), took off carpet, scraped off glue, then sanded and poly-d the beautiful hardwood underneath. Took us days, both of us, with our daughter toddling about. We did (are doing) everything ourselves in this house too, and I like it, but the floor thing is something I might want to bring someone in for next time around.

Wishing you strength!

Kathy said...

I do hope you, Dan and Rascal were all wearing masks during this removal. Most linoleum was made (long ago) with asbestos. If so, I won't go into detail on how it should have been removed...just make sure you guys take care of yourselves.
The house that was burned (next to us) had to have an asbestos abatement team do removal of old linoleum floors before they could burn the sucker down.
And what person would want to cover up t & G floors???? ;)

Robin said...

Wow, you both are getting these home improvement tasks done fast. Looks like it is going well. I can't wait to see the new wood floors.

Flower said...

Removing old linoleum is a memory I have. It literally made me sick. I think the glue had something to do with it. The scraping is hard work! It is a great day when the work is done!

Leigh said...

Renee, "nap of approval" *LOL. We need lots of those or else we can't get much done, ;)

Theresa, I agree with you about carpeting, it's the worst. The dining room scraped up pretty easily, but the hall was tougher.

We're taking Thanksgiving off but hope to get the floor down on Friday and Saturday. That will leave sanding, staining, and finishing for another time!

Minikat, I did that once in a home we bought many years ago. It had a concrete slab and I pulled up the old, scraped, and applied new vinyl tiles by myself. It was a great feeling of personal accomplishment, but it's much nice having a partner to share the work!

Katrien, good for you! That's what we're looking to do in the living room, which has a hardwood floor laid over the subfloor. I'm sure we'll be sick of it by the time we're done, but for now, doing it ourselves seemed the best way to go.

Kathy, it never occurred to us that asbestos would be in the old linoleum. Oh well,it's long gone now. With that knowledge however, I am especially glad to be rid of it.

I'm not sure why they covered the original floor, except that it also served as the subfloor. These were left as flooring and finished in the two bedrooms and my studio. Not sure what we'll end up doing with those.

Robin, it seems like we're making good progress but the "to do" list is a whole lot longer than "things accomplished." :) But then, you know all about that!

Flower, there must have been something in it to make you sick. That would certainly put a damper on wanting to do it again. Fortunately, it's just been a lot of elbow grease around here and fortunately, neither one of us is allergic to that. :)

bspinner said...

Not a fun job but I'm sure once you've finsihed it will look great.

Sharon said...

You have to admit that whoever the laborer was who did the original floor was industrious and wanted his work to last.

Anonymous said...

This comment is a little late. I saw the "tarish" adhesive under the linoleum. There is a risk that the adhesive contained asbestos. Did you check that?

Leigh said...

Barb, I certainly hope so!

Sharon, it's funny because in this house some things were done really well, others just rigged. Sometimes Dan scratches his head at what he finds, but then we both suppose that others may do the same down the road when they encounter what we've done.

Anonymous, way too late. The old linoleum is long gone as is the paste scrapings. I appreciate the comment however.

Desiree said...

I have a question... I was looking at the pics that you posted and have seen the exact same black tar-like glue under my kitchen flooring and plan to renovate as well but have had people tell me that this is possibly asbestos adhesive. Do you know if it is or if it is another gluing process? I am scared to proceed. If you know please message me back!

Leigh said...

Desiree, my understanding is that the asbestos used to be in the linoleum itself, not the adhesive. I believe it requires special disposal. That said, we had no idea about any of that until after the old linoleum was long gone.

I don't blame you for being concerned. I'd suggest to start by googling "remove asbestos linoleum." You'll find lots of information and help online.