So, I got all of the dripping wet particle board underlayment up last night. My, oh my, what a mess.
I tend to go head first into projects and forget about little things like dust masks and goggles. I berate Pat for not wearing them, but I humph when he tells me to get mine. I humphed and went and got the mask last night after I said, “EWWWWW, it’s moldy!” and Pat said, “Get the hell away from it! Are you wanting not to breathe?” I musta looked grumpy at him, because he then said, “At least find a mask.”
It was so wet that all I had to do was put the big pry bar under the edge and lift. Large sections were coming out all at once. While it was some of the easiest demo I have done, I kept hoping I was going to hit dry stuff at some point. I finally did. I will post pics later of the project once it is done. The section that I ended up taking out last night was about 3 x 3 feet.
I drilled holes in the side and front toe kick of the cabinet that is next to the dishwasher port to let it dry out. Pat ended up taking the toe kick out completely this morning when he started his portion of the project. He runs the saws with circular blades for the most part. Theater Shop gave me an unhealthy fear of table saws that I still have not gotten over. I’m better than I was, but not over it. We went and got a roll of vinyl and all the accouterments. Then we went and got Vinyl tiles and some more accouterments. And we went and got some other stuff. And then we went and got some other other stuff. We were at 2 different Home Depots and a Lowe’s today. Several times. I was starting to forget where we were and where we had been.
In any case, we like the tiles that we found better than the roll, the roll was more expensive and it would have been more work.
We will be patching in underlayment and putting new water barrier down under that. The tar paper that was there saved our butts.
If it hadn’t been there, this post would not be so calm. It would have been more like “Damn it!!! More joist sistering! More rot! I can’t stand it anymore! I give up!!!”
But the subfloor, while it was damp, was not WET. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! The construction fan we bought last winter has earned its keep.
We still need to remove all of the old adhesive where we only had to remove the old vinyl, so that will be a project in itself. I never thought I would say this, but thank goodness our kitchen is small. :}
The other nice thing about the tiles is that at $.29 a piece, we could buy enough to patch in one it it gets messed up. That would have been nice in the entryway where the fridge delivery guys peeled up part of the floor and in the upstairs bathroom where the corner of the falling mirror gouged in. Yes the mirror broke. Can’t you tell?
We got the rest of the section cut out to patch in, set the patch down into the hole and then stopped for the day. We are tired.