flooring... anything but boring

We had two areas of flooring that didn't have hardwood on them because they were under the peninsula before, but that now needed wood flooring.  It was the area on the front side of the island and the area between the new bank of wall cabinets and the island.  Fortunately, we had enough wood that we'd pulled up from under the island and new cabinets that we were able to repurpose all of it without trying to match or have anything replicated (i.e. major cost savings!). 

First we realized we needed to get all the old dry glue off the bottom so it would sit right.  Chris used a wire brush for this and it seriously flung a million pieces of dry, black glue all over our garage.  He's in trouble for not wearing safety glasses with all these projectiles flying around.

 

Chris did the area on the front of the island on his own, he's almost done with it in the picture below.  It looks really good, you can't even tell it's different because he did such a great job of lining up the seams and making everything look uniform. 

 

Then his dad came into town one rainy Saturday and they tackled the larger area between the island and the cabinets. It's like a puzzle, just finding the best way to fit all the pieces into the gaps, and then cutting down those that needed to be shortened, etc. We labeled them so we didn't forget the order.
 

Checking the level-ness and using a straight-edge hoe to scrape down some of the bumps and unevenness.

 

Time for the liquid nails.  We went through about 7 tubes.

 Placing the pieces down, fitting the tongue into the groove, then hammering into place.

Now for the crazy part.  Once you get to the last piece in the middle, you can't really get the tongue of one side into the groove of the other, and vice versa on the other side since there's no wiggle room.  So we were planning to just cut the tongue off so once side would be attached with the tongue and groove, but the other wouldn't.  And it would just be glued down.  But Chris' dad had the idea to sort of prop the surrounding pieces up without gluing them down first, then squeeze the final panel into place, then fill in with liquid nails and press down.  It was a little complicated and I don't actually have a picture of this, because all hands were on deck.  But we did it!  Pretty cool.

We used our extra concrete bags to weigh the pieces down while the Liquid Nails dried.  And of course I haven't taken a great "after" picture so you can see how seamless it looks.  We still need to refinish our floors, so once we do that I'll post the truly finished product.

Chris' dad got some pics with his iPhone, so I'm actually in some of them... a little March Madness on Scott's ipad in the background.

Putting the cover back on the breaker box.  We're through with major electrical work... for now.

everything out including the kitchen sink

We waited as long as we could, but it was time to do away with the peninsula so we could tackle the plumbing.  That means no more kitchen sink, which makes life considerably more difficult... We knew it would be an inconvenience, but we really didn't realize how much of one. Makes you appreciate running water.

 

Peninsula. Topless.

Drywall mostly off and pony wall studs gone.  That white PVC you see is the vent, and is a large part of the problem of going from a peninsula to an island - having to bury the vent along with moving the water lines and electrical...

Cutting holes in the cabinet to pull it off the plumbing manifold.

Starting to pry up the wood flooring so we can get to the plumbing.  There's no flooring under our cabinets, meaning in our new design there's an area under the peninsula that will now be a walkway that is currently just concrete.  So we're hoping to be able to reuse the slats we're pulling up to place there.

Very carefully prying it up.  We've discovered that it's 3-ply 3/8 inch engineered hardwood (which I used to think engineered hardwood meant not real wood... but I was wrong. It can get a bad rap if made cheaply, like anything.  But ours is pretty good stuff.)  We thought we were going to have to get some replica panels made at Alamo Hardwood, but it looks like we'll be able to reuse these.

View from the bottom - we'll eventually have to peel (or scrape or sand or blast) off all that glue...

 

Beaz is so over this project... she has been for awhile.  It's cutting into her playing and cuddling time and she doesn't like all the noise and mess.