Adventures in DIY Flooring - Cutting the Rug II

Here we go! As mentioned in Cutting the Rug I, I'm going to start installing the new flooring in the guest room, working west through the hallway and into the master bedroom.

I'd already removed the carpet, pad, and staples in the master bedroom, so I just continued with the other two rooms. Given that there really is no place to move the entire contents of all of these rooms all at once, this is where it started getting difficult.

Temperature non-sensitive stuff sometimes in moisture resistant containers was stored on the balcony... and of course is snowed a bit and despite typical snow behavoir it actually settled all the way to the siding (but had melted by the time I took the photo).

But guess what? We noticed the smoke smell might have actually stronger after the master bedroom was down to the subfloor. UGH! So I did some more research and decided it was probably coming form the subfloor and that there were a couple ways to handle that. The way I chose was to seal the subfloor with a shellac-based primer, like I'd used before when working on a couple fire-restoration jobs back in my decorative painting contractor days. I also used this stuff to paint a closet that reeked of cigarette smoke in a rental I lived in once and it worked great.

When I tore out the carpet from the master bedroom, I didn't have any trouble with the baseboard heater, but the guest room heater had to come off the wall to get to the tack strip. Sigh. So I have started a list of unexpected, added steps. See below.
Fun Fact: we haven't turned on either heater in years. Good to have as backup, I suppose.

I wear a respirator and this primer cures, via evaporation, very quickly. So, it turns out getting this going in spring worked out so I could air each room out pretty quickly with a fan in the window while Delia was outside keeping the Squirrel Menace at bay.

All the blue carpet is oh-ewe-tee OUT!

Speaking of unforeseen steps... and now we wait. Wait for the vendor to get back to me with some details and wait longer, up to 3 weeks) if those details are a particular of one of the options. Sigh.

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Number of Evil Tack Strip stabs: 6 (see photo, above)

Number of times I've taken breaks to comfort Delia after vacuuming: 2

Unforeseen additional steps:

     Removing baseboards (that was just willful naivete)

     Touching up wall paint where reinstalled baseboards might be lower than prior

     Removing on baseboard heater to pull tack strip: master, no; guest, yes

     Might as well install closet shelves, etc while we've got them emptied. Painted, too.

     Taking down closet doors and popping room doors off their hinges

     Figuring out how to reinstall bi-fold doors now that the floor is lower

     Removing glued-down vinyl flooring under existing laminate in bathroom.