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Every muscle and joint in my body hurts. This past week was my vacation, and rather than taking a trip, we opted to take on a few needed home improvement projects. What we did was replace the flooring in about half of our house.

First up was the kitchen floor and the formal dining room (which is used as my wife’s office).

The kitchen had a linoleum covered floor that was extremely difficult to remove. I rented this “floor stripper” for the day which set me back about $75, but well worth it. I first made an attempt at it with a manual scraper, and didn’t get very far before deciding to spend a little more.

I considered installing new floor over the old(as many people do), but the floor in the second room has stained concrete, and I wanted this tile to be an even, level, continuous flow from one room to the next.

I think it turned out very well.

We went with vinyl tile………no particular reason, except maybe that it sounded easier to install than ceramic tile. I think it would be much easier to install the second time around, because it’s such a learning experience.

Next Up…….the Living Room/Hall

Now before all you Trading Spaces junkies get excited, notice I never in this article refer to a room as a “space”. I’m just not that hip.

The living room had carpet that was probably installed when the house was built about 13 years ago. I always liked the color, but the combination of our son and dog, the carpet just couldn’t take the beating. It was stained pretty bad, despite being cleaned with a carpet shampooer regularly, so we decided to put down hard wood (laminate actually). If you noticed the shelves were empty, we had already started clearing out the room when I took this picture.

The adjoining hall and foyer already had a hardwood floor, but I tore it out because I wanted it all to match nicely. I tried my best to take out this floor with out damaging all the pieces, some of them had to be busted up. It was glued down tightly.

Now getting carpet up is not that tough, but you quickly realize just how un-clean it is……..lots of sand to sweep up.

After getting the under-layment laid out and cut-to-fit, it was time to start putting down floor. I was already sore from the past two days of work. My hats off to guys who do this for a living. My knees are still red.

The finished product! Dude, I was so happy to reach this point. All I have left to do is nail down the freshly painted shoe molding to cover the edges, and then the exciting task of moving all that heavy furniture back in place.

My son was ready to take a ride when he got back from spending the weekend with his grandmother.