Lino Removal!!!

Day one of lino removal

Here's the goodies I bought from Bunnings today to get started in removing the lino from the kitchen and laundry floor before demolition starts.  Oh I do love Bunnings!!!!

The heat gun I must say is a great handy tool to have for lino removal.  Though it would be even better if I had a helper!!! Any volunteers out there??  As one person could heat the lino and the other person can scrape underneath.  But so far I'm managing on my own!

This is the gorgeous lino being removed!  I think its the original from 1980 when the house was built.  Its certainly stuck down well.

It took me approximately one hour to do this corner of the laundry.... I have a fair way to go yet.... many more days and maybe weeks, me thinks!  Though once I get going I might be surprised.  Some parts are easier to remove than others too.

OMG!!!

I thought it was going to be back bending, but didn't think it would be this back bending!!! I'm going to end up with muscles in places I didn't think were possible!  Its certainly helping my core strength!

Lots of breaks for hot cups of tea was in order :-)  Also my girlfriend, Kelly, and her son, Breyton, rescued me for a hot chocolate later in the avo, which was very welcome.

Thank god for EPSOM salts in the bath at the end of the day too!!!!

I thought once I had removed all the lino as much as I can, I will then spray the floor with Cooper's paint stripper.  It doesn't actually say its good for glue but I'll give it a go! It can't hurt!

We originally bought the paint stripper to strip the window and door frames inside and out.  Its such a great product to strip paint.  You don't have to sand the woodwork afterwards either!!

This was a section we tested outside.  Its so smooth...

I will talk about the paint stripper later on in our blog.

Right that's it for the day.  Now I need to finish off the chicken, leek and parsnip pie for dinner....

Day two of lino removal

Friday, 20 June 2014.

Before I continue with lino chit chat... here's a photo of our pie we had last night.  It was totally delicious!

I spent the whole day on Friday, from 9.00am to 4.00pm, pulling up our lino.  I made great progress, as you can see below.  I got a really good rhythm going and a well worked system of removing the lino.

Firstly I used the heat gun to soften the lino.  Sometimes I could just pull the lino straight up, other times I needed to use the scraper underneath to lift it, even though it had been softened.

Then I placed very hot, wet tea towels, four in total, on the floor, on top of the underlay of the lino.  This is basically paper and glue.  I repeated this approximately 3-4 times to soften the glue so it would easily scrape up.  This worked really well, as you can see above.  While the tea towels were doing there job, I would continue on with the next section with the heat gun.  Then return to the tea towels, heat them up again and repeat the cycle.

Day three of lino removal

Sunday 22 June 2014

Today my hubby kindly helped me out, mainly in respect of moving the washing machine, dryer, dishwasher and fridge out of the way, so I could remove the lino from underneath them.  Dave then went off to install our new light fittings upstairs - will talk about them later on.

Below you can see the tea towels in action!!

I now only have a small section left in the kitchen to remove, so should have it all done and dusted early this week.   The next job will be to remove the carpet and disintegrated underlay from the dining room.   Talk to you again soon.  Take care for now.

Day four of lino removal

Monday 23 June 2014

I have finally finished removing all the lino from the kitchen, laundry and pantry floor.  I must admit it wasn't that hard in the end.  The heat gun really helped, along with the hot wet tea towels.  Believe it or not I really enjoyed doing it, very satisfying seeing the end result.  Even though this was over four days, they weren't all full days work, only one.

This afternoon I also removed the carpet and underlay from the dining room, ready for the demolition day.  The spade was used to remove the metal carpet strip between the carpet and the lino.

I had fun removing the carpet tack stripping from around the edge.... for this I used a flathead screw driver and hammer, most of it removed quiet easily.

Nice feeling getting these two rooms done ready for demolition day.  Now I can sit back and put my feet up for a few days, before I start my next task!!!