Nursery Flooring Reno

Still working on the renovations in the nursery. The crown molding is almost done; the splices have been patched with wood filler (yellow), and the corners and top and bottom seams are caulked (white). The caulking might not be necessary if the ceiling was level and walls flat, but, well, welcome to the joys of an old house.

If the crown wasn't high up, I might need another round of wood filler to get it really perfectly flat/smooth at the splices, but it's good enough for something that'll be painted and well above eye-level. Still another coat of trim paint required, but getting close.

I cut the carpet into strips. Underneath that, there was foam underpadding, which I also cut into strips. The foam underpadding seems as if it as made by chopping up a bunch of different kinds of foam and then recycling them into a new sheet of foam - there are all sorts of colors and textures in the one sheet. Rolled both the carpet and the foam up into cylinders, tied them at the ends, and put 'em outside.

Underneath that, there's a layer of faux-wood vinyl tiles. You can see these layers here.

The tiles are pretty ugly, but I guess that comes with age. They came up relatively easily: I inserted a thin prybar under each tile, shoved it around to loosen the adhesive, then lifted. Some of the edges were stuck a little more firmly with the adhesive, others nailed down with a few finishing nails at the edge, probably because they started to lose their grip over the years. All in all, it could have been worse.

The adhesive is a thin coat over some kind of wood - I'm guessing this is the sub-floor, but I'll know better when I can see all the layers -- which should be possible where the layers reach the stairs. If it's the subfloor, we'll clean up that layer a little and then lay the bamboo down over that. If there are more layers under that, I might still have some more demolition to do.

Two or three tile sections had some kind of marking on them that's held up over the years, as if it's heat or water damage. Not sure what caused them, but it doesn't matter since the tiles are coming up anyway. The floor underneath doesn't show any sign of damage, so whatever it is, it's a surface thing. I'm curious, but not curious enough to try and dig any deeper.

The carpet was held down at the edges with tack strips, like the one pictured here. "Premium Carpet Strips," they're labelled.

The carpet strips held one last surprise -- beside a good five-foot stretch of the carpet strips were a family of little wormy bugs, and some discarded wormy skins. Not sure how they were surviving down there, since nobody eats food up there, and underneath a firm layer of carpet, doesn't seem like there'd be much to survive on, but ... well, I guess that's one more reason not to have carpet. Just hope there's no little family of worms living under your carpets, I guess.