Well that was great fun

[SeaCat]

Well today was great fun.

My wife and I spent most of the day removing the rug from our patio.

Okay so it's not a huge patio, 10x20. But who in their right mind would put in carpet, even if it is outdor carpet on their patio?

Removing the carpet wasn't a problem. I grabbed a corner and started pulling. (We then cut it into one foot wide strips so we could bag it.) The problem came when we started removing the glue used to hold the blasted thing down. Scraping 200 square feet of concrete with three inch wide putty knives is not fun.

We have it down to concrete now. We'll give it a couple of days, hitting it with water several times each day, then we'll scrape it again. Then we'll scrub the hell out of it so it's ready to be painted.

We already have the paint, high quality Epoxy Paint in an off white color. That should take a while to cure but it will be well worth it. Easy to keep clean. (The patio will be the place I do a lot of the woodworking I need to do. Have you ever tried to vacuume Sawdust out of a carpet? )

Cat

 

[Guest]

We did our kitchen a couple of months ago. We pulled carpet then two layers of linoleum. Icky, sticky, yucchy black glue. Blecch.

I remember being on hands and knees, blow dryers going, scrapers moving, struggling to get rid all of the glue before we could add tile.

Now, it looks fairly decent. For awhile, I had my doubts.

Way to go, Cat! Well done!

 

[Wildcard Ky]

Try acetone. It will disolve most glues.

 

[SeaCat]

We did our kitchen a couple of months ago. We pulled carpet then two layers of linoleum. Icky, sticky, yucchy black glue. Blecch.

I remember being on hands and knees, blow dryers going, scrapers moving, struggling to get rid all of the glue before we could add tile.

Now, it looks fairly decent. For awhile, I had my doubts.

Way to go, Cat! Well done!

I was seriously thinking about dragging out the blowtorch and just burning it off but decided my neighbors wouldn't approve of the clouds of toxic smoke this would create. (They already complain about my cigars.) It would have made it much easier. Maybe I'll do that instead of the second scraping?

I know the feeling about multiple floors. The first house we lived in in Mass, well the kitchen floor had a two inch lip to it and the ceiling was all of six feet up. My father and I started working on it. We cut through six layers of flooring to find an incredible glazed brick floor. The ceiling? Well we tore out a total of 10 cielings, one layered over the other. By the time we were done the ceiling was well over seven feet up. (We won't talk about the walls.)

We lived in that house for three years, and had just finished renovating it when my parents sold it for an incredible profit.

We found newspapers used as insulation in the floors that were over 100 years old.

One thing I found in the garage/barn that I still have was a small can filled with coins. It was placed between the joists in one wall. (My father let me keep it.) Picture a one pound coffee can filled with silver coins. Dimes, Quarters, Halves and Dollars including six of the immoral Naked Liberty Dollars. (No you can't have one!)

Sometimes you are surprised at what you find when you do renovations.

My father has a little .22 single shot rifle he found exploring an old barn. No markings on it. To load it you lower the trigger guard and insert a shell. To cock it you pull back a small knob. It's about the size for a child to use. He's been offered a lot of money for it, but he keeps holding on to it.

Cat

 

[AngelofDarkLust]

Found a five shot thirty-five caliber (yes you read that right) revolver wedged in the floor supports while crawling in a basment crawlspace once. Just beyond it were three barells of prohibition era hooch that had been burried. Amazing shit you find when you renovate.