2 years ago, the day we bought our house, the kitchen looked like this. And no, you are not looking at green and yellow tile floors, but at carpet. Yep, kitchen carpet. Shocking and disgusting, I know. Don't try this at home.
Then one day last year, I decided I just couldn't take it anymore. While Ironman was away at work, I pulled up the carpet. In my dreams, I pulled it up, threw it out and had the floors looking like new by the time he got home. But was disappointed to find several layers of foam, linoleum and some kind of impossible paper. Instead of the response I'd hoped to get, Ironman said "what have you done?" haha. Not good.
After I had already spent the entire day working on this, Ironman and I spent several more doing the same thing. My quick fix turned into a nightmare. By Sunday afternoon, we somehow convinced a friend that he would have fun helping us scrape the floor. Hunter, in the photo below, has never been back. And I'm not joking.
After who knows how many hours and days were put into the floor, we pretty much burned out and left it at this for over a year. It wasn't uncommon to find a staple or nail when walking barefoot and some friends were afraid that we were living in and breathing in black asbestos from these floors.
We tried and failed several more times before deciding that we needed to just hire professionals to help us out. See the floors now? They got them looking like this in less than one day. One day. One. I'm so happy, but it also makes me sick to think of the time I put in and how little I got done! All the pulling and scraping and chiseling and pounding and the above photo is as far as I got. I'm way happier with the professionals progress in the photo below!
I feel like today was a great lesson. Yes, Ironman and I could renovate and DIY this entire house by ourselves. But, it may take us a decade and it mostly feels like punishment for some past sins or something. Unless you truly love to live like this and have a lot of patience, I wouldn't recommend it. Sometimes the best thing to do is fork out that cash, get in the professionals and go spend the day at the beach. Otherwise you may find yourself hoping that your fixer upper just happens to burn to the ground or get caught up in a tornado or something. That's all hypothetical, of course.
I can hardly believe the difference! And that they did it in a day! The kitchen looks a LOT brighter now with the black stuff gone.
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