Dining Room Floor

Soooooo... Yesterday (day off for Canada Day), I decided I *had* to do a bit of work on the house. I didn't feel like working on anything on the to-do list (ugh), so I did one of those projects that's really not that important yet, but still needs to be done at some point.

I decided to tear out the crappy new laminate/plywood(s) to expose the original hardwood.

So this is how that went...

Before. I don't think I can fully express in words how much I can't stand cheap laminate flooring. And these were the cheapest of the cheap. Popped joints, chipped edges, scratches, dings, scuffs, and the awful installation didn't help it either.





Don't you love the nice transition strip(s)? Painted wood with silicone on one side (which is grimy and impossible to clean properly), and a nice metal strip, held in place with dozens of THREE INCH screws.



Not only did they not stagger the plywood, they also installed it over the same seams as the previous 1/4" layer. WHY?



The plywood came up easily because they nailed it down with DRYWALL NAILS. Yup. And you can tell by this one sheet how much of a crappy job they did by the location and quantity of nails used. Some sheets had a ridiculous amount (like 9 nails for a 12" square), and others had just a handful for a 4x8 sheet. They also randomly threw-in a few screws here and there.



The first peek at the floor shows off a few issues...



Floor stripped and swept:



And yes it looks exactly like this in person. It looks BAD. There's all kinds of carpet pad residue (who on Earth would want a carpet in the dining room??? Eww). Tons of large gaps (some that are nearly 1/4"), and a generally sickly looking colour. HOWEVER, under that, the wood looks to be fairly decent. I will refinish it providing that I can find a way to putty the cracks with something.





I will also have to get creative with some patching in several (at least 8) places.





In this room they made no effort to rewire in a non-destructive way (unlike the office, where they passed the wires just far enough to hide it with the baseboards).