House stuff: flooring

It's been a long spring of house stuff. Mainly, ripping up carpet on the first floor. (Just so you know, these photos are from my phone.)

Eventually we'll be refinishing 3 rooms and 1 hallway on the bottom floor. I say eventually because there are some odd things with two of the 3 floors we uncovered. (The dining room was already uncovered before we moved in, so no photos of that...)

Let's start with the living room:

This was the first room I uncovered with help from my friend (Alex was gone, it was a surprise). The floor is in pretty good shape. There's some paint splattered all around, but overall the planks look nice. Unfortunately, we uncovered half a tile under the newer entryway (I'm guessing the previous owner just covered up ALL of the tiles in the entry). Additionally, there's a small trap door by the couch wall. This will probably be covered up by a large rug, but we need to do something about this for the next person who lives here.


After the living room, I ripped up the carpet in the hallway. I was so giddy about the living room looking so great because the carpet was disgusting, that I never imagined the hallway would look any different. HA! I did not expect the hallway to look like this....

Upon uncovering THIS I called my mom in hysterics (ok, not that bad. No tears). I was so upset that I scared my friend away and had to finish this late into the night.

That layer of crap confused me. I thought maybe it was water/fire damage... I ran through a huge list and resigned myself to the fact that we'd be getting carpet.

Somewhere in there I googled "layer of gunk on wood floor" or something equally creative. I found a DIY project identifying this as vinyl tile adhesive or mastic. It made sense because this crap stops at each doorway. The DIY-er said it was tough to get up (and could be dangerous if there's asbestos), so I'm getting a professional to come look at it asap.


About two weeks later, Alex and I tackled the "blue" room (our guest room). Like the living room, I had no idea what the expect. This carpet was even older and dirtier than any others around the house.

Besides some paint spots it's amazing! We could even use this without refinishing. I was so happy to uncover this. If it had been a disaster we would be getting carpet without question. There was a fine layer of "sand" (?) when we pulled up the carpet foam, but that's the extent of the "blue" room drama.


So that's what I've been doing. Getting someone out to take a look at the hallway has been a pain. My first contact is apparently busy, but doesn't want me to know (so he never shows up). I'm hoping we can get this finished soon because we just got our new couch and I'm ready to decorate!