Living Room Floor Demo, Day 2

August 30, 2020

While Liz continued to work on the bathroom (doing a lot of grout cleaning and drywally repair), I continued working on the living room.

There wasn’t a ton of flooring left to remove, but there was a ton of cleanup to do today: cutting up all the boards, removing all the splinters, pulling out all the remaining nails, and shop-vacing the whole room.

A dusty photo of the demo in progress. Hauling all this out and cutting it down to size was a bear of a task.

Most of the big boards are gone and taken care of. Mostly just smaller boards and splinters left.

Soon after this, I stepped on a nail. Which was not a pleasant experience. Most of the nails aren’t problematic (the ones left in the substrate are super thick and dull, and can’t do much damage).

I happened across a finishing nail that was still in a bit of wood, and was positioned just right to where it went through my work boot. It didn’t go through my foot or anything, but I’m pretty sure it did break skin.

I’ve put in a note to my doctor, to try to figure out when I last had a tetanus shot. I’ll be following up tomorrow morning, and a shot may be in my future.

Good news: other than the initial pinch, my left foot started to feel less problematic over the course of the afternoon. It’s not like I was hobbling around or anything, but I did step on a nail. Hoping that if I need a tetanus shot, I can do it a Walgreen’s and won’t need to venture in to Northwestern.

Removed the grate that was here. I was thinking that I officially now live in a house that has a legit trap door.

Hard to look down here, and not see Bob smiling and waving from the basement.

All the wood removed and taken outside. All the nails pulled out. Last step: cleaning the floor with the shop vac. To see the stark difference (and how much dust/dirt was on the floor), the top planks are after cleaning… the bottom ones have yet to be cleaned.

I was super tired at this point, and was cleaning the floor by hand using the shop vac hose. Liz stopped in, saw how tired I was, and offered to help. She then found the shop vac extensions, and got to cleaning the rest of the floor in short order.

I was a hot mess when she showed up, and with her help we got the room cleaned and at a good stopping point for the day. Super grateful she came by and helped me finish up the room.

One dirty mask.

Super, super long day. But we made good progress on the living room, and now have 2/3 of the first floor ready for the flooring guys.

The coming week is going to be a challenge: we’ll need to relocate the bunnies, and start pulling up the floor in the main hall. Our goal is to do exactly what I did this weekend to the main hall, with two layers pulled up and removed.

On top of that, we also have a bit of wall demo and the bunny closet to demo. It’s a big push, but should be a productive week next week.