The Office - "This Close"
It's been a busy and exciting week for us. We finally finished the paint in the office and are "this close" to finishing the floor.
Here is what the office looked like when we moved in:
Notice the awesome brown 1970's painted trim around the window. The trim along the floor, on the right in the photo, was an awesome plastic-like material that had been adhered to the wall. Other than that, it doesn't look too bad, right? All the walls in the house had been painted white before we bought the place, which gave us a nice canvas to work with. Can you see the lines from the wood paneling under the paint, though? We decided to leave the paneling in place and just paint over it. The thought of pulling off the paneling and having the put up new drywall was more than we were willing to do. Plus, we don't really have the time to re-do the walls - I am currently working out the dining room and it's starting to get really old, really fast...
At first we thought we would leave the carpet and re-do the floors later, but before we moved in we decided to rip out all of the carpet in the house. Everything had wall-to-wall. It looked clean, but we were starting to notice that the house had a funky smell. Ripping out the carpets was the best decision we ever made - those carpets turned out to be a major source of the stink.
I wish I had started documenting the process earlier, but here are some shots of what the office looked like just a couple of weeks ago:
Under that beige carpet was - wait for it - a lovely 1970's red and black carpet. We started scraping off the carpet pad, which is that black stuff on the floor. We thought the pad had adhered to the subfloor, but we were shocked to discover that under two layers of carpet was vinyl tile. In the photo in the left above you can kind of make out the tiles.
I did a little research about vinyl tile from the mid-1960's and learned that the adhesive often included asbestos. I have to tell you that I had a pretty major freak-out at that moment. We did a little more research and were relieved to learn that only when the tiles are removed does it expose the adhesive. Needless to say, we decided to leave in the vinyl tile!
It didn't take us long to settle on laminate wood flooring, for durability, cost, and the fact that we could get the flooring done in one day. The laminate floor can also be "floating" over the vinyl tile, thus eliminating the need to remove the tile and expose the asbestos.
Sure enough, we yesterday was the day to do the flooring, and it took less than five hours. That's the good news. The bad news is that we ended up being about two or three boards short. So frustrating! We bought more flooring, but it needs at least 48 hours to "acclimate" to the house. Guess I'll be working out of the dining room for another week...
No big reveal on the office just yet, until we entirely finish the floor, but here's a sneak preview, showing that last, sad row of flooring still to be done (the red stuff is the moisture barrier layer):
Stay tuned for the big reveal - coming soon!
Here is what the office looked like when we moved in:
Notice the awesome brown 1970's painted trim around the window. The trim along the floor, on the right in the photo, was an awesome plastic-like material that had been adhered to the wall. Other than that, it doesn't look too bad, right? All the walls in the house had been painted white before we bought the place, which gave us a nice canvas to work with. Can you see the lines from the wood paneling under the paint, though? We decided to leave the paneling in place and just paint over it. The thought of pulling off the paneling and having the put up new drywall was more than we were willing to do. Plus, we don't really have the time to re-do the walls - I am currently working out the dining room and it's starting to get really old, really fast...
At first we thought we would leave the carpet and re-do the floors later, but before we moved in we decided to rip out all of the carpet in the house. Everything had wall-to-wall. It looked clean, but we were starting to notice that the house had a funky smell. Ripping out the carpets was the best decision we ever made - those carpets turned out to be a major source of the stink.
I wish I had started documenting the process earlier, but here are some shots of what the office looked like just a couple of weeks ago:
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I did a little research about vinyl tile from the mid-1960's and learned that the adhesive often included asbestos. I have to tell you that I had a pretty major freak-out at that moment. We did a little more research and were relieved to learn that only when the tiles are removed does it expose the adhesive. Needless to say, we decided to leave in the vinyl tile!
It didn't take us long to settle on laminate wood flooring, for durability, cost, and the fact that we could get the flooring done in one day. The laminate floor can also be "floating" over the vinyl tile, thus eliminating the need to remove the tile and expose the asbestos.
Sure enough, we yesterday was the day to do the flooring, and it took less than five hours. That's the good news. The bad news is that we ended up being about two or three boards short. So frustrating! We bought more flooring, but it needs at least 48 hours to "acclimate" to the house. Guess I'll be working out of the dining room for another week...
No big reveal on the office just yet, until we entirely finish the floor, but here's a sneak preview, showing that last, sad row of flooring still to be done (the red stuff is the moisture barrier layer):
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