what lies beneath

So I mentioned in my last post that Jonathan was going to do some demo in the kitchen over the weekend. . . and boy did he! I was out of town for the day on Saturday and when Evie and I got home late that night we discovered he tore out the icky linoleum floor to reveal hardwood! Yippe! We knew the wood was there and that it matched the rest of the house (it needs refinished, but so does the rest of the house) HOWEVER, we also knew they had laid a sub floor on top of it for the linoleum. In other places in the house things like this were glued down so we were leery that the wood floors in the kitchen could be saved. Because of this, we had decided to hold off on ripping out the flooring until we were ready to refinish all the floors in the house and ready to lay tile if the floor was unsavable. So. . . needless to say. . .it was NOT the plan that Jonathan rip up the floor on Saturday. He was tearing out a door frame (because we believe 4 doors in a kitchen is a little excessive) and other things to prepare to drywall and prep that wall for more cabinets (more on that project later) and discovered that the sub floor was stapled to the hardwood (not glued). So he did what any other amazing husband would do and went after it.

He wasn’t quite finished when I got home that night (the linoleum ran under some of the cabinets that are not original to the kitchen) but his poor hands were so blistered he called it quits. Last night he finished the job and showed me ‘what lies beneath’ our way old linoleum.

Why yes. . that is carpet! It was under the linoleum and then you are seeing the sub floor and then the glorious hardwood.

I remember when our Realtor showed us this house, he cautioned us that 85 years is a lot of time for “home improvements”. Yes, he used air quotes. And yes, he is very right. It always amazes me (although it really shouldn’t at this point) what we uncover. Like, the fact that there was once wood paneling in the kitchen- pre fake tile paneling.

So on the walls we had: original paint. wallpaper layer 1. paint. wallpaper layer 2. paint. paint. wood paneling. fake tile paneling. Whoa. That’s a lot of transitions- about one a decade.  Seeing all of this layer on top of one another (as opposed to stripping down to the plaster/first layer of paint each time) is why Jonathan and I are so convicted to, wherever possible, do things the right way in this house. Sometimes this point of view is hard for us because we know that doing things the right way like this do not add up front value to our home (but require a lot of effort on our part). We could have put up bead board and called it done- but that isn’t what we wanted and it just leaves this mess for someone else to deal with. These kind of things future home owners won’t know to appreciate, but if we didn’t do that. . . they would be cursing us under the breath just like we do about the previous owners of this home which is not what we want. Anywhoo. . . that is what is happening in the kitchen project.

Thanks for bearing with horrible night time blurry photos :)

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Today I am thankful for God taking me ‘further still’.