Who knew hardwood veneer existed?

We didn't. 

Blast it though. 

Apparently you can buy flooring that looks like hardwood and feels like hardwood but is not true hardwood. It is a thin layer of hardwood on top of a lower quality wood. What's the implication when you want to sand & refinish this type of wood? You can't. You would sand the hardwood right off & be left with the un-stainable low quality wood beneath. What is the solution you may ask. (I'll pretend you did ask, for the sake of continuing my post :) The solution is to tear up the hardwood veneer and lay down new material. Ugh. The ironic thing? This veneer stuff was clearly the nicest looking wood in the house; probably because it was the newest addition :)

Here goes nothing; I am starting to tear this stuff out of our Dining Room & Living Room.

This is the result of my 1st round of pulling up hardwood.
1 trash can of veneer & 1 of tile/scraps/gross underlayers.

Its hard to tell from the photo above that I've changed anything........this is because the floor is literally filthy from the drywallers sawing the sheetrock and mixing up the joint compound.

Day two I made more progress, which was nice. Wearing my sweet knee pads, breathing mask & protective glasses I went into beast mode with my crow bar. Never has a fulcrum seemed like a better discovery! So many boards to pry up. So many nails in each board that needed to be pried up separately. Then the tile. The dreadful tile that was not only nailed in place, but also glued. Man oh man.

The wonders a giant push broom can do to clean up our floor!
Here is after Day 1, before I got started on Day 2.

After Day 1, before Day 2 work started-
the wood ran from the Dining Room into
the Living Room 

I stopped to stretch out my legs & back and
see how far I'd gone. Day 2 is moving!

I love the peekaboo of wood I've ripped up in the Living Room,
not sure why this photo pleases me as much as it does.

The great surprise came midway through my work on Day 2; look at what was hiding under the layers of flooring:

Beautiful REAL hardwood flooring that we think is
original to the house! 

All the flooring layers on full display. From
top to bottom: hardwood veneer, tile, real
hardwood, strange cloth like material
(lurking under the tile, on top of the real
hardwood)

After Day 2: Almost the whole Dining Room done!
 Part of the Living Room too.
Satisfyingly large pile of debris to clean up!

After Day 2; the only veneer left in the Dining Room is
along the far wall & extend under the radiator. I couldn't
figure out how to get it out from under there.

I was quite pleased with my progress on my 2nd day. I stopped working into the Living Room because I didn't want to move the drywallers bags of sand & boxes of joint compound....because they are heavy. I changed my mind after all :)

Good thing I have the best Dad ever. He knew
how to get the veneer out from under the
radiator.....brute force :) Getting it done
on Day 3

I was amused on Day 3 to find a hole in the floor
when I removed the veneer. I wonder what
used to run through here?

All done for Day 3. Clearly I changed my mind about moving
the drywallers stuff. I stacked it on the hearth to get it out
of my way.

Next up? The very front part of the Living Room, it used to be (waaaaaaaaaay back in the day- way before we owned the house) an exterior front porch. It was time for me to get the flooring up from that area too!

My boots toeing the line between the floor I've ripped up
and the front porch area I haven't yet!

Nothing like an empty dumpster to handle the
discarded hardwood veneer! And my Dad
cleared a ton of the old concrete we broke up
and put it in the dumpster too. He is
simply the best.

During my Day 4 removal, you can start to see
the original front porch floor boards
peeking through! 

All the veneer I could get off, is off. The last
few rows on the far wall are stuck under
the hearth for our fireplace....another job for
Dear Old Dad :)

Coming soon- my "after" photos of the whole room - I can't believe I didn't take any on Friday when I was done; but Chris & I came to Philly for Easter to be with his family; so I was preoccupied with packing & travel! 

We got wood!

I couldn't help myself, sorry.

But, really, we did! We went by the house this afternoon only to discover a 

fabulously giant stack of lumber in the driveway!

We were really happy about the lumber delivery.

So what that we've gone over a week with absolutely nothing happening on the house? Who cares, right? OK, well, we care, & care quite a lot actually. Though honestly - the discovery of this giant pile of wood took the sting out of the past 10 days of  work screeching to a halt, nothing doing, waiting, waiting & waiting some more. :) 

Framers: we are ready for you to start doing your thing. Build those new walls! Build our new porches! Climb a wood pile for kicks! 

Seemed like the right thing to do.

The world is your oyster kind sirs. Just show up, ok?

 Our sanity is starting to depend on you showing up & getting to work moving this lumber into our home & making it more awesome than it currently is. Thanks in advance!

Goodbye Carpet on the Stairs

I don't have anything against carpet, per se. I do have a big problem with stained, old, worn out beige berber carpet covering the front stairs & foyer.Chris & I were really hoping to find hardwood under said nasty carpet & we did! 

Before- gross carpet on the front steps

This was our first experience ripping out carpet and it was satisfying to be sure. Taking the carpet off is relatively easy once you get a corner of it up. The pad comes off just as easily. 

First stairs showing

Hooray! Hardwood!

Next up are the staples, which came out pretty easily, we used pliers to grab them straight out. The stubborn/flattened staples were forced out using a flat head screwdriver. We were trying to be mindful not to gouge the wood because we are keeping it. We are excited at the prospect of keeping as much of the old house that we can - including things like hardwood. The contractor will refinish the stairs once the "real" work begins - but our efforts have paid off already.

The trouble is these beastly things.

After - in the garbage!

Before- evil plywood on steps

I don't even know what they are called, but they are strips of plywood that are nailed into the stairs and have nails pointing up into the world. Horrible to remove. The plywood splits & splinters & shreds out in a very unsatisfying way. 

Good thing I have my Dad to give me advice; I had no idea how to get this pesky pieces of nail filled plywood off of the stairs. Dad did (which is a shock to approximately no one). Again, I don't know the name of this wonderful tool - but it worked wonders. If you are removing carpet - do not begin without spending $14.99 on this tool at your local hardware store!

The wonderful tool! Plus a close up of the evil plywood.

Another huge help for this project were the 2 pairs of knee pads our (lovely) tenant found while she cleaned out the basement before she moved. We could not have done this project without them, as we spent a couple of hours hunched over on our knees pulling out the staples & strips of awful plywood. 

It was dusty work and there were shards of plywood & sometimes nails flying around (I had to use a lot of force with the fulcrum tool to remove some of the plywood strips) so I took the appropriate precautions. Though I'm not big into selfies...this was too funny not to photograph!

Looking good - safety first!

We were so very excited to finish the stairs - they look SO much better already! I'd love to hear about your experiences taking out carpet - if you've ever tried. We've been encouraged so much by this DIY effort, we're going to keep on trucking to see what other treasures we find! 

After - voila! Hardwood!