The Never-Ending Kitchen Remodel

My refrigerator and stove are in the living room, my pots and pans are on the front porch, my silverware is in the bathroom, and my stamina went out for beer about half an hour ago. Nonetheless, the end is in sight for the never ending kitchen remodel. The cabinets and drawers are painted (every square inch of them), the walls and ceiling are patched and painted, and the majority of the moulding around the doors only needs one more sanding and one more coat of paint. I swear, if I’d realized how mind-numbing doing a kitchen remodel on my own would be I would’ve left the room in the same cavelike state that it was when I moved in.

As it is, I’m pulling up three layers of flooring to expose the original hardwood floors, and this is absolutely, positively, NOT fun. I thought about this project a lot before I actually started, I exposed the edge of the flooring at the basement door and found that there was slightly less than a ¼ inch of flooring, stratified in shades of green and brown (eeew!), the top two were linoleum, easy enough, but the bottom layer is a veneer of particleboard that is nailed EVERYWHERE. They could’ve kept Satan attached the floor with the number of nails that they used. I removed a couple of square feet using a mallet and crowbar, and realized that it was doable, but that when I was done I probably wouldn’t be able to move for week, so I let the ideas percolate in my head for a while and got on with my unemployed life.

My initial thought was to use my circular saw to score the floor just slightly less than ¼ inch, effectively splitting it into relatively easy to remove strips, without scoring the underlying hardwood. A quick look at my circular saw (which I’ve never had need to use before) showed me that its shallowest cut depth was exactly ¼ inch, ever so slightly too deep. Hmmm... well, I picked up a router cheap on Ebay a few months ago and haven’t had a chance to use it, maybe that would do the trick. Then I tried to read the instructions...(see above)

All I can say is that writing jobs for technical manuals should never, ever, ever be outsourced overseas… If I took the time to figure this out it would be months before I finished the kitchen, and I need to get on with the bedroom, bathroom, TV room, and stairwell remodeling (the scary thing is that when I sit down to take a break I usually watch HGTV. I sense that there is something deeply wrong with that).

Allright, lets look at the circular saw again. I found that I could adjust it to slightly less than a ¼ inch – woo hoo! This will go fast now! Happy, happy me!

One problem; my circular saw is cordless. I got it as part of a set (drill, reciprocating saw, circular saw) – it even came with its own carrying case, how cool is that? Not so cool once I realized that one pass about 2/3 of the way across the kitchen floor, which takes about two seconds, depletes that rechargeable battery completely. And the “quick charge” function on the charger? Not so quick...so here I sit, writing, waiting, getting up to check the charger every few minutes, and desperately wanting a beer. Of course I can’t have beer if I’m playing with a tool that could cut off a limb, and I also want to get at least one full section torn up today, but if another 10 minutes goes by and that thing is still blinking I may have to succumb.

Yep, stiiiillll charging...

Finally, the two batteries fully recharged, and I got FOUR seconds of cutting time. It is slick though - I'm cutting the floor into about 2 ft. x 2 ft. squares and they're coming up pretty easy (still a whole lotta nails though). I've cleared about a third of the kitchen floor, my arms are sore, the batteries are recharging, and NOW I can have a beer. Maybe I'll wear the respirator mask and safety glasses to the bar, its an interesting look for me.

Next...Adventures in Belt Sanding