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Before you put in the new stuff, you have to take out the old stuff. In other words, demolition time! John took out the old cabinets, which turned out to be basically shelves nailed to the walls with sides and doors attached. Probably dated back to before they made prefab cabinets. We ended up putting the doors and drawers out on the curb, and some lady driving by saw them and was so happy to take them. The ugly bifold doors we set out also went quickly. That's one perk of living on a busy street--we can get rid of just about anything within an hour. John burned all the scrap wood that was leftover in our fire pit on the patio. We had gale-force winds, pouring rain and even hail, but he kept that fire going all day!
Then he attacked the floors. One of the really neat things about owning an old house is finding clues to what it looked like in previous eras. Peeling back the layers, we found:
Dingy white linoleum, circa 1990. Under that was a layer of plywood.
The next layer. Faux brick linoleum, circa 1970.
The next layer. Geometric pattern on yellow faux marble linoleum, circa 1950.
Under that was underlayment that was attached with about 200 nails and/or staples per square foot, making for a difficult job. It probably contained asbestos, too. Under that is the original wood planks of the floor. Some of the cracks are large enough to see right through to the ground under the house. Our suspicions that there is no insulation under there are confirmed!
There were also multiple layers of wallpaper. Here they are in reverse chronological order:
There was also light blue paint and cream paint in various places. The cream paint covered our brick backsplash, which turned out to not be real bricks, just tiles made to look like brick. Can't you just see what the place must have looked like in the 1970's with the fake brick on the walls and floor and the "country" wallpaper?
