More about Floors - Kitchen

No work was done on the porch or the garden on Saturday because Andrew was at an all-day PTA Leadership Training Meeting, and Mel was painting someone else's house with REACH, for charity. I turned the radio on loud and started stripping the remainder of the linoleum goo off the kitchen floor. Aside from some aches and pains from two days on hands and knees, and a head full of "Angel in the Morning" and "Like a Virgin" (I gotta change that radio station), it's been a success to balance the frustration of the porch.

When Carolyn visited in February, we three ripped up the wrinkled and warped linoleum that had been put in the kitchen in the 1957 remodeling. We looked at the black and horrid floor beneath and decided it couldn't be saved (although I believe Caro suggested sanding it down). It is really gross -- it is strips of black paper (backing for the linoleum, I'd guess) and globs of glue, and cat hairs and food, all sticking in the floor. The "5 second" rule does not apply in the kitchen. In fact, I'd say it's the "5 centimeter" rule -- if something gets within 5 cm of the floor, it has to be thrown out. It looks grey here, but that's from dirt and dust over the black. We don't, to be honest, even sweep it often, because sweeping seems to create more dust and dirt.

At a sale in March, we purchased about 200 square feet of cork flooring. I am really looking forward to installing it (it's the clickable, floating flooring type).

Well, for some reason it took me 6 months to figure out we might as well try stripping the goo to see what there is to see beneath it. If nothing else, it will make for a cleaner floor in the meantime before we get to installing the cork. So I donned heavy gloves and knee pads, and started glopping Citrustrip, which is a relatively environmentally-friendly stripper.

It's a standard stripping process - glop on, cover with plastic wrap, wait for an hour, scrape off, clean surface with water. And it works like a dream. I have done 2/3 of the kitchen in 2 intense days of intense orange fumes and scrubbing on hands and knees. I think the worst part is the clean-up -- mopping with water. The mop is filthy after two or three passes across the stripped floor, and has to be rinsed out or it just moves the mud around. Every 4 square foot patch has to be mopped-rinsed-mopped 4-6 times (and probably more, but I get really bored with mopping).

I gotta say, the work has paid off beautifully. Under the horrible linoleum and the dirty goo, there is a pretty red fir floor. Probably this is old-growth fir (much of the original house is). The photo is slightly cheating, taken when the floor was wet after mopping. When it dries, it's a dull pale brown -- the wood is untreated.

If we decide to go with hardwood flooring, this will require sanding and polyurethane (not to mention, I have to finish stripping it). We'll find other places for the cork -- the basement, actually, would do well with a warm touch on the floor, or possibly the studio.