Another Weekend, Another Sacrifice to the Money Pit

This weekend was once again tied up in home renovations.  (One day we really will be done, right?)  This weekend we did the kitchen floor, entry way floor, and painted the rest of the living room.  Here are the before and after pictures:

 Although you can see we had already started ripping up the floor, you can see how the old vinyl was coming off the sides and curled over.

 Here is the old vinyl in the kitchen, entry way and in the master bathroom (that we replaced last week).

 Can you see the nails?  The ding dongs that lived here before us nailed down the edges that had started to curl up rather than have fixed appropriately.  We also discovered that in some spots in the kitchen, they had also tried to put down more glue to try and get it to stick down.  It took us over two or three hours in each of those spots to get up all the mess.

Here is how the kitchen looked Friday morning.  Fridge, stove, and dishwasher all gone.  Plus all the vinyl flooring gone.

 And here is the after.  Doesn't it look better?  What is really cool is that the sheet was so big that the only seam in the kitchen is near the edge by the grage door and is barely visible.  No more seam in the middle of the kitchen!  YEAH!!!  Now the carpet REALLY looks old, dirty, and just plain bad.  Oh well.  It is going to have to wait for awhile.

While removing the vinyl ourselves took a couple of late nights both weeks and hard work, overall we are glad we did it since it took our bill from the original $1400 quoted down to $700.  In fact the flooring guys could not believe what a great job we did in removing it and how clean and in good shape the floors were when they came to lay down the new flooring.  However, if we were to ever do this again, I have to admit I think I would be tempted to just pay the extra cost to have them remove it.  This is especially if sleep is at such a premium as it is now with a newborn. 

Plus the rest of the wall is now painted. No more faux finish in any part of the house.

Now I am in the process of putting the kitchen back together, cleaned up, and starting staging in the sense of getting rid of excess and rarely used items.  It's going to take awhile, especially with a two year old and newborn but hopefully by Tuesday it will be done.  What's next?  Not sure.  Either finishing the laundry room or replacing the railing by the stairs.  Stay tuned . . . . . . .