Monday 10 December 2012

The floors...

I know I keep banging on about the flooring but let me show you why it's so exciting!
We moved here 4 years ago and inherited this:

 This is a good bit which lived under a heavy cabinet so I cut round it when I removed the rest. 

It's vintage! But not my thing.


Okay, you get the idea. I'll stop it now...

It had a huge bald spot in front of the sofa.We lived with this carpet for a few years! It smelt. We had it hygienically cleansed! The smell came back.

So one day when my husband was away I cut it into pieces and binned it. My motto is 'it's sometimes better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.'

He didn't mind. We are still baffled over how I managed to move the sofa on my own when it's the heaviest model known to man and takes three burly guys to shift it. It was one of those moments you read about like when a child is pinned under a car and a woman can lift it up and free the child. That's how much I wanted the carpet out!

But things sadly were not much better. Over the concrete floors we had the original brittle linoleum (?) tiles and they were not pretty...


Apart from all around the edges of course where they had shattered with the carpet grippers going through them.

And they smelt too! I steamed them. I bleached them. I cillit banged them! They still smelt.

So I figured I'd pull them all up. Again, waiting for my husband to be away...


Mmm, pockmarked concrete with bitumen stains. Nice. Everyone was getting on my case about how I should keep them as they were level and possibly damp proof so I gave up.

There was a huge pothole in the doorway where a pipe under the floor had caused some issues...


I had to fill it with the grey deep gap filler as people kept falling in. And it was slightly embarrassing. ''Come on into the living room, mind the pot hole''

And here's another one forming in the hall...


                                                                     Just lovely.


The picture above shows the broken edges.



So we saved up and did some wiring that needed to be tackled first and we are finally doing the floors. FOUR YEARS! Do you now understand what this means to me?
We shall be like normal people in a normal home!

The man is coming in the morning to do a latex screed which will level all the nasty bits and seal all the smells in.
The day after that we'll have stunning pale oak engineered wood. And nice tall skirting boards! And maybe even a Christmas tree!

Bring it on! X


16 comments:

  1. That's the problem with old houses - you just never know what's underneath! We installed lovely wooden floors and they look and feel great! Good luck!
    Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger

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  2. Ooh I love your motto 'it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission'
    I know what you mean, nothing is too heavy/hard when you want something done!
    It's going to be sooo gorgeous when you have the oak flooring down and no one will ever know its ugly past (except us!)
    I'm with you with the carpet, give me plain anytime. I hope I don't have to wait too long for a new carpet. It's hard to get rid of the smell. Ours is just about bearable now after several treatments.

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    1. I can only share the horrors of this house when we're fixing them! x

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  3. Your floor will be so worth the wait and you will appreciate it even more. We have just had our windows replaced with oak double glazed frames. For 12 years we have put up with 70s single glazed windows in our 220 year old cottage. They were rotten and had horrible aluminium handles and ran with condensation the minute the temperature dropped. We couldn't even open the downstairs ones - 12 years ... we have never opened them!! In the summer the window sill fell off our bedroom window and that was the final straw!
    Now we just need to sort out some heating ... we do have 2 woodburners downstairs but sometimes I just don't want to get the axe out and start chopping wood! Have fun putting all your lovely bits back in place on your new floor! M x

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  4. Haha! We had that awful 70's aluminium windowage here. In fact we have two left. Know all about the condensation on the frames! We replaced ours when one upper sill fell out!

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  5. I can feel your desperation, Emma Kate. You're nearly there! xx

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  6. Good things take time, better to wait and have something you really want than compromise with something you aren't happy with. xxx

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    1. Exactly, I only want to do this once so it will be worth saving for something fairly indestructable!

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  7. I understand, it took me six years to get my house back to a reasonable standard after the previous owners had trashed it.

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    1. The previous owners here did it up when they bought it new, the did nothing for 40 years! I don't know which is worse!

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  8. How fantastic that you'll soon have a lovely floor! I'm sure you'll forget all about living with the horror of the potholes in no time when you're revelling in your beautiful floorboards :)

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  9. It will all be worth the wait when its done I'm sure! I cant wait to see it, then you'll be able to get on with christmas!

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  10. I hate to be the bearer of potentially bad news, but if that is old linoleum, it needs to be professionally removed. It probably contains asbestos. It is not a safety issue unless it gets disturbed. I had it in my house. We ended up putting a hardwood floor over the top of it to seal it away. I would have someone look at it.

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    1. Wow I didn't know that Teri. But I figure the latex screed will seal it nicely and leave it undisturbed. (Apart from the bit I removed...oops!)

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