*our house
6 years ago we bought our first home. It is 79 years old and it shows. Over the years many, many owners have moved in and did what they thought was remodeling; I'll explain.
The first year we lived here we ripped up the bathroom floor because the million, 1/2 inch tiles were buckling and rising up in various spots. After we ripped up the tile and the first layer of plywood, we discovered a layer of black and white art-deco linoleum from the 20's. Under that were 2 more layers of plywood. After all of that was removed, we hit pine plank flooring. Our home is a big, old, country cottage so I decided to paint the floor instead of covering it again. It is now a lovely shade of blue with fish stenciled all around.
*bathroom floor
But do you know what really makes my bathroom unique? The 3 inch gap at the bottom of the bathroom door; the higher the floor got, the shorter the door had to become.
The cats love to grab our feet from underneath it, so all is not lost.
*gap under door
Still feeling the effects of being new home owners we decided to expand our demolition capabilities to the extra bedroom. Let me start this story by telling you that a previous owner decided to panel the entire house. Now, when I say panel, I don't mean gorgeous real wood paneling. I mean fake, crappy, nicotine brown paneling in EVERY SINGLE ROOM.
*our yucky paneling
Someone then decided that red stain would look good over the paneling in the extra bedroom. They were wrong, the room looked like REDRUM. If you have every seen the Shining you know what I am talking about. The walls were dripping with blood red stain, literally dripping. I can't imagine why they would just let it run down the walls, but that is what they did. There was no way to paint over this bloody mess and it was giving me the creeps, so we decided to rip down the paneling. There were no less than 5 million, 6 inch nails holding the light weight crappy paneling to the wall. Someone must have given nail guns to a bunch of coked up monkeys and let them run wild. For days we pulled nails.
I am sure you know what 6 inch nails do to the wall behind paneling. It chews it up and spits it out. The 7 decade old sheet rock crumbled like a dry cake. So down came the sheet rock and the dropped ceiling. Losing the ceiling was such a waste; I really miss those pissy white colored tiles, they gave the room such an insane asylum feel.
*insane asylum
After the room was gutted and we had removed all the debris including 50 year old, bug infested, wet insulation we began the rebuilding. I had very little dry wall experience, which means I had NO dry wall experience and my husband's experience went as far as pretending that he has built a house from the ground up with his bare hands, I stress the word pretending.
*master carpenter who is not happy about what I said about him
I looked to my daughter who was 12 at the time and she just laughed and went out to play.
We did the best we could and eventually got all the walls and ceiling done with the help of my mother and her husband. It is not the prettiest room in the world and the trim around the doors and windows still isn't up after 6 years, but damn it, we did it ourselves.
* daughter Beth now 17
This all leads me to today. Our kitchen is a hodge podge of eras. 1970's painted, plastic cabinets,
1980's orange/beige colored, vinyl tile flooring that is torn in several places and a 1990's paint job over wallpaper.
*plastic cabinet
I then added another layer of paint over everything when we moved in. I am sure my kitchen is bomb proof. Today after looking at the floor in disgust for the umpteenth time I decided to rip it up. I obviously have not learned my lesson. The first layer of plywood is half up and I have the 37 puncture wounds from the 2 inch long staples they used to put it down with to prove my work.
*floor half tore up, notice lovely orangey tiles and art-deco underneath
Not to mention the knots my back are in. The second layer of plywood is covered with more art-deco tile that I will scrape up. I discovered an old heat vent behind a cabinet that I removed and a hole in the wall and floor, giving a lovely view of the basement
Nothing in remodeling can ever be easy, can it? Tomorrow I will continue my quest for a newer home, but first I think I better update my tetanus shot.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 43
RKL
You have my utmost sympathy, being 1/2 of the the remodeler team for our old farm cottage, originally built by 4 neighbors on the four corners, each with different ideas on how to measure things.... Whee!
Good article, good pics.
For the knots in your back: Spread a comfy blanket on the floor next to the wall. Get your butt as close to the wall as possible with a pillow underneath and your feet straight up the wall. And a pillow under your head. Arms to your sides. Eyes closed. Stay as long as you like. Or until someone calls you to do something.
Many do it your self projects can be made easier by looking up methods on the net. Some projects are easier than others and takes more concentration to accomplish but can turn out good.
Just keep pecking at it and one day it'll be done. :)
You are so brave and strong. I love the pictures.. the bathroom floor is beautiful.. I used to get into doing home repairs, now adays however I run from them. I do have to do some work in my hot attic rooms this year. Gotta expand living space for the little monsters. You smile now.. you are a wonderful person. Maybe you will pull up something and find a treasure.. wouldnt that be nice? Loved the story.. and the pictures.. You keep going now super woman.. have a good night.
I have about five hundred pounds of 12 x 12 ceramic tile stacked in my garage, waiting for my wife to decide what color to paint. We thought it would be a good idea to paint before we do the floor. She also wants to paint the solid oak cabinets, which have admittedly seen better days, black. It breaks my heart to paint over good wood. it is so rare and expensive these days.
Boy, you hit a note with THIS one! My favorite "remodeling" story was when I was living in a particularly old house and thought it would be a good idea to strip the wallpaper and paint. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I pulled off one piece of paper and was greeted with a view of the great outdoors! That's right: all that was standing between me and the elements was a piece of white and blue flowered wallpaper. I very carefully tapped the wallpaper back in place. You can only imagine what my heating bill was in that house. (Luckily, we were living there rent-free, although we paid the equivalent amount for oil.)
And then there was the time that we were awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of the hall ceiling falling in. Yeah. Good times.
I called a plumber once, needed him on a Monday, and he said Monday was his busiest day because it was the day that he had to go around and fix the work of the "weekend warriors" who had decided it was a good idea to do the work themselves. Of course, calling a professional is a dicey proposition as well. I spent two thousand dollars to fix a plumbing leak that they never managed to actually fix (although I have a newly fiber-glassed tub to show for it) until I finally hit on someone who knew what he was doing. He charged me an arm and a leg, but he fixed the sucker.
You have my compassion. They don't call it "the money pit" for nuthin'.
You are definitely headed in the right direstion, though. The bathroom floor sounds great. Why oh why did people feel a need to cover wood????
Anytime I can help . . .
what you're doing looks to be crazy as HELL! OMGA!!! And the house is 79 years old? With rotting (assuming that plywood rots) plywood as an intermediate LAYER???? I'll be praying for you, oh Lord will I ever be--I couldn't do this, probably would have to rig the SOB w/ explosives, develop a new floor plan in AutoCAD, destroy the bastard and start from the underground up.
I do remodeling on investment properties, but hire people to do the work. The only thing I can do is sand, paint, and small tile work.
LOL!
Here in NZ there use to be a TV programme called 'DIY disasters'. Poor women cooking on camp stoves in the bathroom for 3 years whilst their kitchen was in pieces. Husbands had given the job up as too hard and were starting on another room. The 'Disaster' team would step in with an intervention and make hubby finish rooms and give the wife back her kitchen and then give husband a list of jobs to do which must be completed before they send someone back to check.
My advice? Call in the experts as soon as the going gets tough and save time and money!
We know that our house has had about 15 owners, maybe more... none of them did anything properly, just kept adding layers... now we are down to the original floor again.... I guess what comes around goes around.