September, 2005
| Removing the vinyl flooring and the underlayment in the kitchen and laundry room was the toughest part. There was a top layer of vinyl laying on a thin sheet of plywood. Under that was another layer of vinyl on top of particle board. Under the cabinets and in the laundry room there was plywood instead of particle board. |
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| We temporarily removed the island and the small cabinet to the right of where the stove sits (on the right where the fan is sitting). For the remaining cabinets, after cutting up the floor sections with a circular saw prior to removal, I took a sawzall and cut small strips all the way up to the cabinet kickplates, pried those pieces up, then used a wood chisel to carve the underlayment out flush with the cabinet bases. It was very slow going and tedious work. The hardwood flooring will go right up to the cabinet bases. When we eventually replace these cabinets they'll have the same "footprint" so there won't be any underlayment showing. I'm planning on using oak shoe molding finished identically to the floor around all the base molding and the cabinet fronts. |
| We ordered the oak flooring from Memphis Hardwood Flooring Company. For No. 1 common grade, we were surprised at how nice the wood is. The waste pile was very small. |
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| Flooring in the living room. A definite improvement. We saved the cardboard "Memphis Hardwood Flooring" sign. I think we'll put it in some kind of a plain black frame and keep it for posterity. Just not above the mantel. |
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| More flooring in the dining room and kitchen. |
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| The view from the mailbox. This is our driveway. The house is not as hard to see as it is in this picture. When we say "house in the woods", it really is in the woods. |
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| One early morning with a fresh load in the burn barrel. We actually gave up on trying to burn all our demolition pile in the barrel and had ourselves a big bonfire in our field behind the house. |
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