Over Our Heads

So we started tearing up our floor. What a nightmare. We have to remove the old vinyl, plus the underlayment. It isn't suitable for tile to sit on. So we have to remove that and put down tile backerboard. Sorry, I don't know the exact terminology so please bear with me. Then we can put the tile on the new backerboard.

Here's the problem. The old underlayment is stapled down. Which it should be. BUT, the flooring people went crazy with the staple gun and there are like a million staples in it. And they are loooong staples that go deep into the plywood floorboard . The underlayment is like a pressboard (if you know what that is) and is coming up in little pieces because of all the staples. It is very time consuming. And then trying to pull the staples out afterward.........CLOSE TO IMPOSSIBLE. Even Flyboy, who is strong like the Hulk, is having a hard time with it. This is going to take forever. If it weren't so expensive to have someone do it for us, we would do that. The installation price we got for the tile (just installation, not materials) was $11 per square foot. Who on earth can afford to pay that????? Granted, we didn't call every number in the book. I'm sure there are cheaper prices, but my goodness. We are trying to save some money here.

We've got most of the dining room done and are starting down the hall. We still need to get the laundry room, bathroom and kitchen. Then, we have both bathrooms upstairs to do. This is hard work and VERY time consuming, but the end result will be worth it. Our laminate is supposed to be on it way this week. The estimated delivery date was the 12th and that was yesterday, so it should be any day now. Not that we're ready for it, but at least we'll have it ready to go.