We've been working on putting new floors intot he whole house for about a month now. My request when we started was that we only do one room at a time so we wouldn't have to live in a huge mess while we're doing this. So far that's worked out pretty well. We still have a big mess and lots of things where they don't belong just to get them out of the way. The floors in our room are done, the girls room needs a few more squares (which we have but haven't put down yet;)
The lady that used to live here was a smoker. I'm pretty sure her husband was too. They lived here for close to 20 years. They also had dogs. The carpet had never been replaced. It is so filled with smoke and grime that it's sticky. The girls have brown spots on their knees from playing on it. If you walk around with just socks on they'll start to stick to stuff- so if there are little bits of anything (beads, legos, paper etc.) on the floor you'll end up with everything you step on sticking to your foot- and the sock will be dark brown by the end of the day. What I'm trying to say is that it's really gross and had to be replaced before my precious baby boy starts crawling and playing on the floor. The kitchen and bathrooms have linoleum flooring that the previous owners put down themselves. They just kinda rolled it out and didn't put and trim down in the bathrooms or hallway so it's peeling up at all the edges. The kitchen has a demi-diagonal wall in it and they angled the flooring to be straight with that line instead of the straight witht the house and it looks, well, not right. They get an A for effort.
We used our Obama stimulus check for first time homebuyers to get new laminate flooring. Let me just say that I am not a fan of laminate flooring. I don't like how it feels or looks for the most part. However, this is a double wide and we plan on building in the future so we didn't want to invest too much into new floors but just enough to make them liveable for about 10 years and then rentable after that. We also needed something durable that'll withstand all our kids can give. We are putting the laminate in every room except the kids rooms, bathrooms, and cooking area of the kitchen. The bathrooms and kitchen we'd like to get tile for. The kids rooms are getting carpet squares. Since I don't really like laminate, I had to paick it at least. I chose wide planks and I think the color is walnut, it's dark. As I said, this is a double wide and everyone knows that mobile homes have wood paneling for walls. Well, the paneling is a different color that the flooring so when you come over don't be alarmed- we know. My theory is that we'll be here for quite a while and there's no rush to paint the walls right now. We'll get them done slowly- when I have nothing else to do ;).
So far We've made it form our room through the hallway into the kitchen and the foyer and halfway through the den. That's where it gets fun. The previous owners also put in a gas fireplace. They used rock for the faux chimney and it was really nice looking. Nothing else in our house uses gas so we' would have to rent a giant propane tank just to use this inefficient fireplace that won't help heat the house at all. We have always wanted a woodstove as our sole source of heat. Jon started demo on the fireplace today. Our woodtove is at the store and ready to pick up! We have lots of prep work to do though. Once we get the fireplace completely gone we have to finish the floors including fireproofing under and behind where the woodstove will go- which is exactly where the fireplace was. We are going to use the rock that Jon took down to put over the fireproof wall/ floor. There was so much dust in the air while Jon was tearing out the rocks that when I took pictures you can see it floating in the air- blech. Most people know how wary I am about breathing anything in so I stayed far away. I couldn't convince the girls to though- they loved watching the rocks fall. There is now a thick layer of grit on everything that didn't get moved before he started- yay.
I am really loving the areas where the floor is already down. Even thoug it's laminate- it feels so much better than sticky carpet. It looks great too. Our room is already painted so it looks really nice in there. I am looking forward to being done and not having a heating bill this winter!
Above: Fireplace Demo
new laminate and old carpet
Hope and mojo in the den.
Workng on the kitchen.
