Mazdeuce fixes the grosh

In reply to oldopelguy :

Seth's always welcome at my place too... but we only have 2 beds and a blow up. so someone is sleeping on the couch!

Are we perhaps driving the clan in the R63 to the UP????

In reply to 759NRNG :

The kids wanted to bring a bike, skateboards, a cubic yard of books and all the other stuff that goes along with hauling a family north for the summer. The R63 is superior as a people hauler, but the truck wins for hauling stuff. 

bobzilla said:

In reply to oldopelguy :

Seth's always welcome at my place too... but we only have 2 beds and a blow up. so someone is sleeping on the couch!

Ummm...what kind of blow up Bob???

Kitchen thing is happening. 40 year old vinyl floor. Yuck. We don't just want new floor, we want this gone. 

Sweet!

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Kitchen thing is happening. 40 year old vinyl floor. Yuck. We don't just want new floor, we want this gone.

 

I've played that game.  When I bought my house in 1998 (postwar Denver 1949 starter house) the kitchen had similar flooring.  And then a 1/4" layer of underlayment with about a million 1/2" staples.  And then THREE MORE LAYERS of various kinds of flooring.  The last layer - some sort of linoleum and maybe original -  left a thick coating of goo on the hardwood below it.   I was actually able to refinish that hardwood, and it still looks great!

I'm sure I got my lifetime dose of asbestos during that process too...

When we redid our kitchen floor there were 7 layers of linoleum. We had to use shovels and heat guns to pry it all up. Once we did, we found a circular cutout in the floor. Pulled that up to find a manhole cover that covered the top of a 40ft hand dug terracotta well, original to the 1912 farmhouse. Kitchen used to be the front porch back then. 

You just never know what you will find in an old house.

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I <3 those tiles you’re pulling up, they’d go great in our kitchen!

EastCoastMojo said:

When we redid our kitchen floor there were 7 layers of linoleum. We had to use shovels and heat guns to pry it all up. Once we did, we found a circular cutout in the floor. Pulled that up to find a manhole cover that covered the top of a 40ft hand dug terracotta well, original to the 1912 farmhouse. Kitchen used to be the front porch back then. 

You just never know what you will find in an old house.

Tell me you threw a piece of acrylic or glass over it and pointed some LED lights down it. I wouldn't have been able to resist doing that.

EastCoastMojo said:

When we redid our kitchen floor there were 7 layers of linoleum. We had to use shovels and heat guns to pry it all up. Once we did, we found a circular cutout in the floor. Pulled that up to find a manhole cover that covered the top of a 40ft hand dug terracotta well, original to the 1912 farmhouse. Kitchen used to be the front porch back then. 

You just never know what you will find in an old house.

I found something similar when we renovated my ex's kitchen.  Pulled up the subfloor and found the largest abandoned mouse nest I could imagine made of pink insulation. After removing the nest, I found a 1/2" steel plate, about 36" sqaure.  In one corner, there was a 3" pipe vent.  Peering into the hole with a flashlight, we saw a brick lined well, about 10' or so deep. With water in it (the water table is high in her area).  We guessed the kitchen was built over what used to be the back porch of the house. The gas line for the stove ran over the plate, so we couldn't easily pull it up for further investigation. 

I wish I had pictures of some of the stuff we found during that renovation...  old houses indeed (built around 1895).

This is why I post pictures of lame stuff like scraping vinyl tiles. Inevitably one or more of you has a really really cool story about removing old flooring. 

The most interesting part of this whole thing is that some tiles are stuck hard and you have to chip them off. Some peel off nearly whole. There must have been a couple of different boxes and though the pattern matched, they were different. 

The last remaining chivalry in our house is me trying to get the super crappy jobs done before Mrs. Deuce has time to help. On schedule to finish before the weekend. Back is getting grumpy. I'm old. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Just saying they exist and will save your spine.

Oh man, the build threads section of the website is THICK with PACM right now. Any chance you tested for asbestos? That old flooring has about the highest likelihood of anything in your house for containing asbestos.

In reply to Mezzanine :

The house post dates asbestos in flooring. The internet says everything after 1980 is good and this house is early 80's. Always worth thinking about before tearing stuff up though, thanks. 

Well...that early 80s figure is pretty misleading. Flooring was still manufactured with asbestos well into the 80s and it's legal even today. Plus there never was anything that said retailers couldn't sell their old stock either.  While it's less common into the 80's, it's better to test and know for sure. And that pattern is so ugly it could easily be older.

I was going to make a pithy comment about an unusually large number of lizard eggs in the wall, but it occured to me when typing it out that I don't acutally know how many liard eggs people usually find in their walls. 

Anyway, things are getting remarkably real. 

Mouse carcasses, yes - more than I have ever cared to see.

Lizard eggs?  Can't say I have ever found any.... or have even seen any.

Mrs. Deuce was amazing today. The big thing keeping me from immediately tearing the room to the studs was all the stuff in the kitchen. Shelves and cabinets are great at holding a lot and it's not easy finding out where to put it all. She kept one step ahead of me all day and except for the little bit behind the sink, the room is naked.

I need a few plumbing bits before I pull the sink out so that we can still use it while I get new drywall up and mudded. Lots of electrical to move and add as well. 

We had to replace our old dishwasher today. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to find zero lizard eggs. 

Speaking of dishwashers, we're not putting one in but I'd like to run drain and water lines to the one spot that one would fit if we put one in in the future. And advice/reading on how to set that up for the future?

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Based on the number of tools and swear words used during our still-ongoing installation, I don't think our house is a good example of how to do it right.  Although having a separate water shutoff for it versus the sink would seem ideal.

+1 on the separate water shutoff for the dishwasher. When we were looking at the house we live in now, I noticed the dishwasher was leaking onto the hardwood floor. Was able to shut off the water on the spot and let the listing agent know. FWIW, I've never found lizard eggs in a wall either so it's looking like your original comment would have been safe :)

Trying to keep the sink cabinet around as long as I can. The cabinets were built without backs so things are getting wobbly. We'll see how long this lasts until I have to do dishes in the bathtub. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Trying to keep the sink cabinet around as long as I can. The cabinets were built without backs so things are getting wobbly. We'll see how long this lasts until I have to do dishes in the bathtub. 

Add a scrap diagonal brace across the door opeings to help it survive a little longer