The One That Got Away: Over-built & Under-appreciated

Three layers of leave-behinds, the oldest
 of which was hand-painted.

So, about that floor...  My son's room is still not finished.  And it's not just my inept wallpaper removal that's holding it up.  Although, for the record, the last three people to do wallpaper removal in that room weren't all that awesome either.  There were all sorts of leave-behinds under there.  Layers upon layers of fun!

Speaking of layers, the floor in there was faux wood linoleum.  In a house full of ruined and wretched hardwood floors, what could be so bad that you had to cover it with faux wood linoleum?

One of the daughters of the previous owners recalled to us that there was carpet in there at one time.  And by other evidence in the house, there had been some ill-behaved dogs.   Hmmm.  Well, we painted the floor in my daughter's room to cover old ink and water stains.  That looks pretty cool, so we could always do that, right?  Maybe I'll just peel up a corner and see.

Just peeling up a little bit... And there's a subfloor.  Hmmm.

More tools required.  Now, the guts to go
 beyond the point of no return.

Yep, there's a maple hardwood floor under there.

So, there's a maple floor.  Same as in my daughter's room.  No apparent damage in this tiny little corner.     But.  There's always a but.  Whoever decided this floor needed covering did so in an era when linoleum backing adhesives were very, very good.  And whoever installed this floor also decided that staples are cheap.  The linoleum-armored subfloor is attached to the maple floor at a project-rage rate of 37.4 staples per square foot.  And these are not just any staple, they are 1.25"-long staples with super-tiny heads.

In short, removing this cheap-ass, installed-in-a-day floor is very hard work.  And it's still not done.  I, again, had to enlist the help of hubby to help me rip up the linoleum-enforced, staple-fortified plywood as I was honestly not strong enough.  And, now that it's up, the staples are a back-breaking remainder.  Removing the staples is sit-on-the-floor contortion antics at their worst.  And the staples are finicky.  Twist or wiggle them too much and the head breaks, leaving un-grabbable sharp thingies.  Just what I need, a bed of tiny spikes for my little one's tootsies to walk on.  Tom Thumb singing Tip Toe Through the Tulips Iron Maiden-style.  But I digress...

The priming and painting (and painting and painting) is progressing in there, but it's no wonder there has been a procrastination factor on the floor.

Still baffled as to why the hardwood was covered in the first place.  There is a dark stain and some minor mold on the floor near the former fireplace -- likely new from condensation off the chimney where our newly efficient, awesome furnace exhausts into and as-yet unlined flue (short list).  And there are a couple of totally fixable water spots along the outside wall from old roof/ice damn leaks.  But, seriously, this floor is totally OK.

It's times like these when you really wonder what people were thinking.  Under-appreciated maple hardwood masked by completely overbuilt subfloor topped off with faux wood linoleum. Does not compute.  At all.

I know, I'm just bitter about the staples.  And we are headed into month three of my three-week project.  And my poor soon is still sleeping over in the bunk room.  This room just has to get finished before heat is requisite as we don't usually keep the Tavern/Bunk zone warmer than 58 in the Winter.  Can you say son-sicle?

On a side note, said son is currently obsessed with The Wordsuckeruppernator (brainchild of The Electric Company) on PBSKids.org.  And he wants to build/invent one of these contraptions himself.  Wonder if  this clever almost-six year-old could come up with a Stupidstaplesuckeruppernator?