Adventures in DIY Flooring - Cutting the Rug VII

When I started the bloggy part of replace-all-the-upstairs-flooring project I wasn't sure about continuing the "Cutting the Rug" titling for the hall bathroom, since it wasn't carpeted. Then as I was tearing out the laminate I found that indeed at some point, glue-down carpet had been installed. ICK! And EWWWW!

See that  bit of carpet still stuck on the vanity? Also, there is dried adhesive on the original vinyl.

I also found what appears to be the original, sheet vinyl flooring. I don't know why I assumed they'd torn out whatever was in there before putting down the laminate, but I did. And it turns out that with the exception of the carpet phase, all the floors in her have been wood-look, so that's interesting-ish, at least.

There's that 1970s version of the faux wood (with dried carpet adhesive on it) at the bottom and the 2010-ish laminate version of faux wood at the top. That little white bit in the bottom right corner? That appears to be a water damage repair in front of the shower*.

Unfortunately, the newest phase of this bathrooms floor requires that the sheet vinyl be removed. Why? Well, because the VPL needs the floor level within perimeters that is is currently not. Just like all the other rooms. That means pouring more self-leveling subfloor and that means I had to remove the vinyl... yeah, I even called the manufacturer to make sure. UGH.

Two layers of vinyl on top of this paper-ish layer shown in light grey, above. This took hours to remove. 

The rest of the process was the same as before: prime, pour, touch up, lay floors. Unfortunately, the base shoe moulding that came out to remove the laminate was not "real" wood. It was particle board covered with material that matched the laminate. Not only was it damaged near the shower*, it wasn't going to take stain to match the wainscot or the new floor. So... that meant new base shoe or base moulding. It's always something.

Still need a transition piece for the door way. Hopefully, I will get most of those installed by Thanksgiving.

The base moulding. Sigh. I found a profile that I thought worked with the wainscot, but it was not quite thick enough to deal with the one sloppily cut piece of flooring. Ahem. I tried three stores. So I settled for a "streamline base" at the third stop. It's not like this is our dream bathroom and it would be worth every minute and penny to find just the right moulding for this project.

I also picked up a more decorative profile for around the base of the vanity. While we're making due with that piece, we still needed something to replace the base shoe that we removed and it's small enough that something a little more detailed wasn't going to be a waste of money.

Here's the thing. OF COURSE I got to thinking, "while the floor and toilet are all out, maybe this is the time to take down the wainscot that we don't love." But we don't hate the wainscot and there is every reason to believe there's at least one layer of wallpaper under there based on what I saw when I took the wallpaper off above the wainscot. And if not that, then there's every reason to believe that the wainscot is glued on. Either way, so much work ahead and all of it would be done and we'd still be stuck with the 1970s sink-counter combo and shower in avocado green. So, as it stands we are still swinging with the 1970s vibe in there, but now with new flooring. I might paint it, though.

I needed something for where the shower is. I didn't want to replace it with base moulding or with base shoe as it had been, so I went with a threshold style piece in oak, stained the same as the balcony door threshold in the guest room.

And a before image from the very beginning when we first moved in 6 years ago and just after we started making it ours (within the limitations of the above mentioned of 1970s fixtures). This laminate was not that old and not so bad, really. We just wanted to have the same flooring all through the upstairs. Heck, I'd go for that downstairs.

Only one room left! It's going to be pretty much an entire overhaul, so it's going to wait until after the new year.

Unforeseen additional steps:

1. There's the base shoe issue mentioned above.

2. Toilet troubles: In order to take out the floor I needed to pull the toilet. In order to pull the toilet, I need to close the toilet water feed valve. OF COURSE. However, it was stuck upon. And stuck but good. Sigh. Luckily, we have a neighbor who is a plumber who came by one morning with his apprentice to replace it. Upside: this presented the opportunity add an escutcheon. Which for some reason is important to me.

3. I did not realize that I'd have to remove the glued-down sheet vinyl in order to apply the self-leveling subfloor. This added a good 2+ days to the project and required us to buy a heat gun and a floor scraper. And put a dent in our adhesive bandage supply, too.

Here is the specialized, custom ventilation solution for dealing with the heat and the smell associated with that heat gun process.

* We don't use this shower - it's not sized for grownups. We've each tried it and did use it when the downstairs shower was out-of-use a few times while working on that room. Based on what I saw when I removed the shower doors downstairs and the types of things hat had gone on upstairs it was the M.O. of previous owners to keep fixing what the leaky-drippy shower doors ruined rather than fix the leaky-drippy shower doors.