The Great Kitchen Debacle 2010

Several months ago I noticed something amiss in my kitchen. The floor right in front of my sink had a little rise in it as it came up to the cabinet. I checked under the sink supposing there may be a leak….there wasn't. I being very busy and not all that savvy about things like this thought it was just the house shifting, my house was built in 1951 and on Texas soil, which moves around a lot. So I went about my busy life and ignored the floor in the kitchen until the corner in front of the cabinets became squishy and obviously full of water….damn, now what? I called the company that holds my home warranty out and the guy thinks that it is the aerator on my bathroom sink which just so happened to be shooting water down the back of the faucet, where I couldn't see it (brilliant design) he decided that was the leak that was going under my bathroom wall and kitchen cabinets ultimately causing the problem…I myself thought that was a long shot but went along with it anyway.

A couple of days later I talked my dear wonderful friend Jeff into coming over and taking a look at my floor that was by now badly damaged. He pulled up the linoleum to reveal 3 layers of linoleum and the actual wood floor underneath were all wet. He also pulled up the back board inside the cabinet to reveal that in fact the water was coming from across the wall from the bathroom and perhaps over quite a long time the water could have been coming from the sink faucet.

Here is what it looked like after the first time Jeff came over. I lived with it looking like this for 6 weeks.


 It stayed like this for about a month. I put a fan on it to start drying it out so that the floor could get repaired and checked it every time I came and went to work. All was well for 2 days and then I came home and found that the floor that had been getting dry was in fact soaking wet again. I called the plumbers out again and the guy Joey is his name and he works for Recue Rooter Fort Worth, came turned on all the faucets in my bathroom at the same time and stood looking at the wall and inside the cabinet and decided that the water was coming from one of the things he had running in the bathroom and that the entire kitchen wall would have to be torn up to find out where the problem was coming from. Oh and they don't pay for access so not only was I going to have to pay to have my kitchen torn up so they could fix one little leak in the wall I was also going to have to replace my irreplaceable 1950's excellent condition cabinets and tile counter top. I asked if he would be able to better tell exactly where it was coming from if he took a look under the house. In the same "you're an idiot girl" tone he had been using for the entire conversation he told me that it didn't work that way and you can't see, I would have to tear up my kitchen.

After panicking for about 15 minutes I screwed my head on straight and decided to get a second opinion. I called Ernie's plumbing and Terry came out. Terry did something strange, he actually turned on the faucets in the bathroom one at a time and decided pretty quickly, after getting on his knees and actually looking that the water was coming from the faucet in the tub….now we were getting somewhere! He decided that it was the valve behind the hot water knob, since hot water was coming out in the kitchen. He gave me an estimate and then went to work fixing it. As soon as he took the faucet apart he realized that it wasn't the knob that was leaking. Then he did another strange thing. He put on some coveralls and actually crawled under my house, had me turn the water on and determined that the leak was coming from my tub spout. Terry then told me that he would have to knock out some of the tile in my bathroom to get to the tub spout to fix it but then he did another strange thing, when I suggested cutting a hole in the wall inside my kitchen cabinets where no one would see it he instantly told me how smart I was and what a good idea! Now he would have better access to the problem and wouldn't have to tear up my bathroom in the process. Terry fixed the leaking faucet, and after 586$ was on his way. He was an awesome nice guy and did a great job! Thanks Terry from Ernie's Plumbing!

So back went the fan to dry out the mess. After a month of drying out, the floor was ready to be replaced. So, I called Jeff and we talked about the plan. We decided that Spring Break was the time to do it. I was off of school for 3 days and we could tear up the floor and get it back down. I was optimistic Jeff however, has done things like this before and knows the kind of problems you run into along the way especially in 60 year old houses. We made the first of what was to be many trips to the Lowes to get the supplies we would need for the floor. I had to order the vinyl squares that I wanted online because apparently black and white checker board is not in style in Texas. When we went to Lowes we talked to some guy that I have now decided to call jerk face, and he said that we should use what he called floor leveler but what ultimately turned out to be concrete patch(more on this later in the story).

This is what it looked like after Jeff came over to "get some measurements"  I lived with it like this for 10 days.

Day One:

Monday the 15^th of March we started on the journey. Jeff went to work tearing up the old wood floor that was damaged and I went about carrying it all outside. There was cutting, sawing and carrying of the wood outside. Then we had to go to Lowes again to get new tar paper to put between the subfloor and the new wood that the floor would go on eventually.

Once the tar paper was down the ¾ inch plywood went on top of it. Here is where it gets interesting. The so called Leveler was supposed to now go on the existing concrete floor in the utility room and was supposed to go over the wood in the kitchen to fill in the little imperfections in the plywood so that we couldn't see them in the finished floor. So we went about trying to do that and to make a long story a little shorter that is not what happened. The first batch was way too thick even though Jeff mixed it according to the label instructions and after we poured it down in the utility room and had a big mess on our hands we were a little more careful about mixing it for the Kitchen. We got that down and Jeff went home for the night, thinking that his stuff was going to be dry by the next morning and we were going to sand it a little and then be able to put the floor down. We were pretty excited and thinking that we might even be done the next day.

Day Two:

When Jeff arrived the next morning, the stuff wasn't dry….at all. So after discovering that the blow dryer made it dry faster we decided we needed a giant floor heater. We went to Lowes, got a few more things we discovered we needed and then went to Home Depot at the advice of the Lowes guy to rent a floor heater. Home Depot didn't have any floor heaters and sent us to Sunbelt rental to get one. We were in Luck they had one. We rented it and headed back to the House with our huge kerosene torpedo in tow. We got it going and got the kitchen up to about 100 degrees in 10 minutes and the floor dry in about 45 minutes.

Now here is where it gets interesting. While I was out on an errand for Jeff, he called me when I was half way home and says we need masks, I was a little scared but turned back to the CVS and got them anyway. When I got back to the house there was a huge dust cloud in the Kitchen that prevented me from seeing the other side. This was by far my favorite part of the project and where the original Lowes guy earned his name of Jerk face. Now everything in my house was covered with a layer of grey dust.

The dust layer in the kitchen...lucky me this is everywhere in the house...although this is by far the worst room.

On top of this we decided that the utility room floor could not be saved and Jeff came up with the idea of putting a wood floor on top of the concrete and then laying the new floor on that. So back to the Lowes we went to get more wood and now more molding and quarter round to finish off the utility room. Lucky for me my other friend Jeff showed up to visit with me and help a little with the floor.

The two Jeffs working together on the utility room floor.

At the end of day two we had both of the floors covered with wood, sanded and the seams filled in.

Day three:

We coated the floor with some kind of latex goo that was supposed to help the vinyl stick better, whatever I guess it did. Once that was dry we started putting the floor tiles down. That was fun in and of itself and seemed to be pretty satisfying after all of the toiling we did on the last two days. By the end of that day we realized that we were not going to be finished and that I would have to take a day off of work to get it done. So I called and got my shift covered and went to bed knowing that we were on the home stretch.

Picture of the moulding /floor goes here.

The molding without the caulk.

Day four:

Jeff slept in, and brought Lisa and Ava with him at about 3 pm.

Cute Baby Ava!!!!!

I had to make yet another trip to Lowes to get some more molding and stuff to finish out the utility room. Jeff worked hard the rest of the day to get the room finished out. Finally at about midnight he was applying the last of the caulk to the molding and it was time to load up the truck and trailer with the many tools he had brought over to do the job. I cannot extend enough thanks to Jeff for sticking through this job until the end. Never once did he get grouchy and kept a wonderful positive attitude through the whole thing. He is my hero! Thanks also to Lisa for doing without him for four days.

Jeff had to custom make some stuff to fit on the thresholds for both utility room doors as they are weird and not standard at all.  He did a great job!

It is still not clean and I am out of time.  I will post some pictures of it when it is cleaned up!

Chao!