Back when we remodeled the kitchen (post here), I brought up replacing the floor. Joseph shut that down hard and fast. Joseph doesn't usually shut me down, so the few times he does, I usually don't fight it. I figured I could live with it and/or we would do it eventually.
The time has come. We went back and forth about potential problems with laminate wood in the kitchen. I dumped water on the samples and let is sit overnight and they all looked fine. I'm going for it.
We got a quote and it seemed a little high. We asked him to break it down and it's not that he was charging more per square foot (I can see exactly what he's charging for the rest of the home because of the insurance paperwork), he just had a ton of stuff to tack on - quarter round, a t-something that may or may not be used (because my house goes in a circle, so it depends on how the floor meets), add on tax and profit and it really added up.
So I decided to save myself $500 and remove the tile myself.
Only problem with my plan is that J is having a busy streak. Because of the nature of his work, he has ebbs and flows, and the work is definitely flowing. Which is good, but also a bit stressful for my Love. And stressful for me, since I got to tear up the tile myself.
Don't judge my wreck of a house. They tore up the flooring everywhere else. Which is why I was trying to hurry and bust the tile out. I didn't want to hold anything up.
Do you see all of the thinset that was left after the tile was removed? I thought removing the tile was hard...nothing compared to scraping that.
But I figured out a rhythm and was able to remove the tile pretty quickly.
First you have to angle the chisel so that it is almost parallel to the floor and smash out the grout.
Once the grout is smashed out, tilt the chisel up to about a 45 degree angle to the floor and pound until you can tell that it is under the tile - you can tell by the vibrations.
Once it's under the tile, angle it back parallel to the ground and get it all the way under the tile. Don't just try this first; you won't get it under the tile and the tile will chip up and pieces will hit you in the face (did I mention it's important to wear safety goggles?).
Then take the rotary hammer with the nice chisel attachment and tear up the thinset.
This is what took forever. It was not a fun week. I would come home from work and work on the kitchen, and then go to bed (usually pretty late). Of course, I got it done last week and I still have no floor....so I guess I could have taken a little more time.
The rotary hammer took up most of the flooring. There were a few ridiculously stubborn spots that were just not coming up. My friend Shawn Ryan let me borrow his jackhammer type tool; we had to borrow his air compressor. That worked like a charm. If you angled it the wrong way you would actually chip up the cement slab it was so powerful.
But it's nice that it's done.
And it's nice to not have a layer of thinset dust in my hair anymore...although it was getting some great volume. But that stuff wasn't just in my hair...we did a major house wipe down and clean up. Even though I still have no floor and stuff is just kind of thrown everywhere, we tried to clean up as best as we could. I cannot wait until my floor is in and I can go through and put things back where they belong.
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