16_Hardwood Flooring And Roof Installment

On July 8^th after the drywall works finish for that day, it was time for us to move on to the next step i.e. hardwood flooring installment in the dining room and kitchen. However, before that, we had to pull out the linoleum flooring and tiles.

Pulling Out Tiles

We started in the kitchen, trying to pull out the tiles. It wasn’t easy to pick out the tiles. In addition, the tiles were stuck using mortar, a mix of cement, fine sand, and water retention compound; so they were thick and heavy. It was too hard for me to pick them out, so there was nothing much that I can help.

Picking out tiles with the mortar layer still intact.

My husband told me to pick out nails from the old wood that we reclaimed. So far, picking out nails was my favorite task; I don’t know why. It was challenging and it looked cool at the same time. Sometimes I had to do movements that look like the fight scenes in Kung Fu movies. Yep, I am that weird…

Anyway, I picked out nails until I felt tired, which was soon. I was still tired from dumping the waste earlier and picking out nails seemed activate my tennis elbow that I thought it had healed. We called it the day with my husband finished picking out around half of the tiles, but the mortar layer remained intact.   

In the next morning, surprisingly I felt sorer in my legs rather than my arms. I had a knot in my calf that made me walk with a limp. I decided to rest, beside nothing much that I could do. My husband went back to the house in the morning to continue picking out tiles.

By lunchtime, he finished picking out the tiles, but not the mortar layer. To add more surprises, under the mortar layer, there was linoleum flooring beneath. So whoever installed the tiles never really bothered to take out the linoleum, and now we had 3 layers of floor. They were linoleum, mortar, and tiles. It would need a lot of work to take them all.

The mortar layer below the tiles.

My husband went back to the apartment to have lunch and picking me out. I thought I wouldn’t do anything but cheering him. However, there was something that I could help; being an extra hand for my husband.

On picking out the floors, we used a crowbar to pry section by section. So my husband pried a section of the floors, as much as he could, I put a block of wood under the open section to keep it tilted. And then he moved to pry another section; I put another block. This continued until he could pick out a portion of the two layers.

Left: Linoleum flooring underneath the mortar layer. Right: Putting blocks to help  prying the rest of the flooring.

For clearing the debris, still I couldn’t help. The debris was heavy due the cement component. I couldn’t imagine how we are going to lift them to the landfill. They had to be cut in small pieces.

Left: The mortar and linoleum floorings with a lot of nails sticking out. Right: Some parts had been taken away, showing off the sub-floor beneath.

Picking out the whole floors was a tiring job. Nonetheless we could finish it at 6.30PM. We decided to end the day and left the linoleum flooring in the dining room for the next day’s task.

The sub-floor underneath the tile flooring.

Taking Out Linoleum Flooring

On July 10^th we ripped off the linoleum flooring. This job was easier than taking out the tiles plus linoleum in the kitchen. Basically it was just taking out one layer of wood. The challenge lay on taking out the flooring on the edge of the wall. We kept scratching the new installed drywalls; and only in the last two pieces, we managed to remove the flooring without scratching the wall.

Left: The linoleum flooring with a lot of nails sticking out. Right: The drywalls got scratched.

We finished the work in two hours and discussed the next strategy. This was our last demolition works. After this, the works would be putting in something; no more putting out.

Left: The sub-floor in the dining room. Right: The whole backroom with no flooring.

The drywall finishing jobs would be finished on the next day. After that, we had to paint primer on them to see if there were any flaws in the finishing, for example the seam between two drywalls still visible. And based on that, the drywall contractor could perfect the finishing job. My husband had his painting tools back in his hometown in PA. So we thought to drive back there to take them during the weekend.

Roof Upgrade… Finally!

On July 11^th my husband received a call from MND Construction that the roofers would come the next day to install the new roof. This was a surprise because we asked to get 3 days notification. The reason: there was a chimney without a fireplace in the house. The fireplace was closed behind several closets in the bedrooms and the hallway, leaving unused space. Upon knowing his, we wanted to use the space to expand the closets in the master bedroom and bathroom. I know, in horror movies, closed fireplaces could be the source of all evils. But we would take our chances.

Anyway, back to the chimney. Since we wouldn’t need it, it would be better to knock it off. It costs around $150 to take the chimney out, so we would do it by ourselves to save money. That was why we needed 3 days; we never done it before, we needed time.

So, having one evening to take the chimney out was surely not enough time. But it seemed that we didn’t have other options; so we decided to let the roofers do it.

On July 12^th we went to the house very early because the roofers said they would come around 7 – 10AM. I was left in the house alone to wait for the roofers. I had to ensure that they would do what we wanted.

However, until 10 minutes before 10AM, there were no signs that they would come. So I was sure that they wouldn’t come at all. I waited for my husband to come for lunch break, and he came at 1PM. Knowing that the roofers didn’t come, he called MND Construction. Annoyingly, the reason they didn’t come was the stock of the shingles was running out; and because of that, they could only do the job next week. Really? And they didn’t bother to call?

This had become too much. When we first called the company in early June, we got fast response. But after we ordered and paid half of the cost, the company became unreachable. It wasn’t easy to contact; the phone line was always busy. And once we could reach them, the receptionist said that we would get early notification. But now, this happened.

My husband dropped me back to the apartment before he went back to work. After work, he picked me up again. When we arrived at the house, we saw some boxes in front of the garage. They were parts of the new roof. Apparently even though they said the roofing works would be next week, they dropped the materials anyway.

I looked at the boxes and found the color said ‘mission brown’. Wait, what?! We ordered ‘hickory’ color, not ‘mission brown’. What kind of messing up was this? Even though ‘mission brown’ was not an ugly color, but messing up the order was a sign of poor working performance. Oh God…

Left: Some materials of roof. Right: The color mentioned on the package was not according to what we ordered. 

Luckily, in less than hour, we received a call from Ruben, the guy who pitched the roofing works. He said he and his team would do the work tomorrow! We told him about our concerns: the chimney and the wrong color. He assured us that he would knock off the chimney for free and the color of the shingles would be ‘hickory’. Upon hearing this, we decided not to be present in the next day during the roofing works.

Replacing Sub-Floor And Putting Underlayment

After taking out the whole floor, we were ready to put the new hardwood flooring. However, in order to make sure that the hardwood flooring would settle securely, we had to strengthen the sub-floors. When we took out the strongly attached floors, sometimes we damaged the sub-floors. Now we had to replace these sub-floors.

We cleaned the repaired sub-floors and put a plastic underlayment. We finished the day after putting 1 row of underlayment because tomorrow the roofers would come around 7 – 10AM. We needed to go to bed early.

Left: The damaged sub-floors was being taken out. Right: The damaged sub-floors was replaced.

Left: Another damaged sub-floor was being taken out. Right: The replaced  sub-floor.

On July 12^th, my husband came home with good news. Our stuff could be kept longer in the storage until October 18^th! That was a big relief. We could continue our construction works for the rest 7 weeks without worrying where to put our furniture. Whenever we were ready, we could ask for our stuff to be delivered.

At the house, we started to lay the hardwood flooring after putting the whole underlayment earlier in the morning, when we were waiting for the roofers. The challenge of putting the hardwood flooring during summertime was the wood expanded. In addition, the floor line was not 100% straight; I guessed there was no floor line that perfectly straight. So we had to be very careful to prevent the hardwood flooring from arching. After laying 3 rows of hardwood flooring, we had to finish because it was getting dark and we didn’t have room lamps anymore.

Above left: One layer of plastic underlayment. Below left: The whole floor was covered with plastic underlayment. Right: The new installed hardwood flooring.