Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Old Kitchen

If you live in an old house, you know that all of the rooms have names.  Such as the old kitchen, the kitchen, the greenhouse porch, etc.  Keeping in that theme the buildings also have names.  Freezer house, shed, old barn, garage.  You get the picture.  Our house was built by my husbands grandfather for his new bride in the thirties.  As their family expanded, so did the house.  When they found out they were having twins after having four kids, they built a new kitchen.  Hence, the "old kitchen".  They left the old sink and one row of floor to ceiling cabinets.  This is how we got an awkward area with a bonus sink.  Now it is merely a pass-through to the kitchen or the office.  Before we moved in eight years ago, the hubs and the father-in-law tried to rip up the old linoleum.  As usual in an old house, there was more than one layer, and the bottom one had a black felt that wouldn't come off of the pine floor.  Fast forward to now.  The floor has remained "as is" until yesterday.  The hubs rented two different sanding machines and went to town.  The black stuff...... well it stayed on the floor and gummed up the sand paper.  We pulled out chisels and grinders and the black stuff stayed put.  The solution?  Today the hubs is putting in laminate flooring like what we have in the kitchen.  Oh, it won't be easy.  Nothing is level or plumb around here.  Stay tuned.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Same thing here--nothing is level. Drives me crazy sometimes. It is always a little frustrating to see the cracks in the molding from just a few years ago--I know it's time to get the wood filler and paint . . . but who wants to do?!?! haha If you would, take pics of the floor . . . I love our vinyl tile in the kitchen. And, we have a vinyl wood plank look in the basement. We absolutely love the look. And, they clean up nicely.

Have a great day.

Shannon said...

Oh yeah, we are the picture people. We have pictures, I'm just waiting for the final one.

Fantastagirl said...

I wonder if self leveling concrete or something like that would have worked?

I've lived in homes like that - so I totally understand. In our old house - there were five layers of flooring in the kitchen when we went to replace the floor it was awful! I'm sure it will turn out great!

Amanda said...

Don't you just love old houses? We just moved out of an old Victorian. We've owned our old house and now we're over it. I'm liking Army housing now. If something breaks, you call maintenance, and they come fix it - free of charge to us.

twin power mommy ♥ said...

I remember two years ago we put in laminate. We did about 800 sq. feet of it.

It was tough because my hubby is such a perfectionist. He made sure that our cement was smooth as a baby's butt. He had heard horror stories of people putting flooring down without the underlayer being perfectly level, so he was DARN sure the cement was level.
Oy vey...it about drove my nerves crazy...but now i am glad he did. It looks fabulous!
Good luck with that. I can't wait to see some pics!

eyes_only4him said...

yeah the first house we bought was pretty dang old, and the floor was all uneven..gosh I hated it..

so hard to do anything without putting a crap load of money into it..

good luck..

Carolina Mama said...

It sounds so charming though. I do hope it turns out as you wish. You're 11/08 pictures are awesome! The boys are loving it!