Kitchen Floor Progress

It has been about a month since we really started working on the floor, but the real effort has been about two solid weekends and Andrew's time off between Christmas and New Years. The linoleum was removed in one day, and Andrew decided to quit using the heat gun and just use a scraper to loosen the edges and yank it up. The heat gun did soften the linoleum, but it was taking a really long time. Right after Andrew finished a section, I was right behind him with a bucket of hot water and Dawn dish soap sopping the paper backing and glue to scrape it off the floor. We were pretty happy to finish this part of the floor in one day.

When Andrew was on break, he got busy scrubbing the floor with more Dawn and hot water with a bath tub scrubbing brush to break up the glue and leftover paper. Once it was dissolved, he scraped the glue up with a squeegee. At this point, Andrew really thought the work was done (or was trying to convince himself of it). I really felt the floor needed some sanding. After a few days back and forth about sanding, I decided the floor just didn't feel good walking on. It was too rough, especially compare to the rest of the flooring in the house.

So I taped off the room, and sanded the floor with a palm sander. It has smoothed out the floor, and now I am trying to convince myself that it's ready for staining. Before the linoleum was put down, they seem to have scraped the floor to get better adhesion but it has left scratch marks all over the floor. It doesn't quite work with the rest of the house, but it gives the floor some nice character. We are continuing to think about more sanding, this time with an industrial sander to remove the scratches. Still to be determined about the final outcome...

We also got really excited and got a small can of whitewash stain to test on the floor. I've read a few other ways to do a whitewash, combining a slightly tinted paint and diluting it with water, but this gave us a quick idea of where we are on the floor. It's a little pink, so we will try the paint option too and compare.