Ripping up floors

2/16/2006 – Every muscle hurts! So far we’ve pulled up all the carpeting upstairs. The carpet in the landing was just black powder underneath. I’m guessing it’s some type of adhesive that turned to dust. Under the carpet is 8” square linoleum tiles in a softly striped grey and pink. They were probably very happy with it when it was new! Under the tiles is some kind of underlayment of a fibrous board material. It’s a real chore to pull up as they have nailed it down every six inches. Kevin bought a special shovel that’s used to remove roofing to try and lift it up but he said it really doesn’t help that much. It’s just going to take a lot of time and muscle. All four of the bedrooms are the same way. Sigh!

While I’ve been working on the upstairs, Kevin has been busy tearing out the ceiling in the laundry room downstairs. They put in a drop ceiling to hide the plumbing from the bathroom above it. We still aren’t sure if the stairs are where they have always been. It’s going to take more ripping and tearing. He did discover that there was probably a doorway leading from the hallway in front of the laundry room going into the north parlor. We can also tell, based on the change in the height of the mopboard plus patching on the plaster where there used to be walls, that the dining room was much smaller than it is now.