We live in a tri-level home…as I’ve mentioned before. I adore this about our house. Not too many stairs to climb has been a blessing for my kids and all of the people who come visit us. The basement living room was actually how I convinced my husband to buy this house. He had no interest in this house. It needed so much work….it was outdated…etc etc. I on the other hand, knew the moment I walked through the door that I wanted to live here. I could see past the WAAAAAAY outdated heavy curtains….the dark, dark kitchen…and the several other things that were calling my name in this house. I was beaming all the way through this house…..Husband on the other hand looked like he couldn’t get out fast enough. That is….until we got downstairs….and I proposed he could make it a bar room. I’m almost positive that we made an offer about an hour later. Men and their beer. But can you blame him? Here’s a picture of what we saw when we walked through our house the first time….dark trim and all.
We have a lot of living space down here. It is home to our 2nd living room (and also bar now), the boys’ playroom and a 1/2 bath/laundry room combo. I hated the carpet that was in the basement living room from the moment we saw it. But, we lived with it for the past 3 years and made it work.
There was another random moment of us discussing for the millionth time how much we hated the carpet. Next thing I know, my husband is ripping it all up….and thus began the biggest project to date in this house. Oh…and did I mention….we decided it would be fun to do this weeks before we hosted a house full of friends and family for our sons’ baptisms? What a world. What a delight.
As usual, the carpet was a breeze to pull up. But underneath it…..??? Underneath it was a nightmare.
Glue. A four letter word that I now want BANNED from my vocabulary. Freakin’ glue. When I tell you there was a million inches of glue on EVERY SINGLE SQUARE INCH of that large room, it’s no exaggeration. Swear, I’ve never seen so much in my entire life. We started to panic. How in the world could we get this off? We tried adhesive remover…and we might as well have hired a sloth to do the job. It wasn’t working…I began to fall apart…..as well as my arms. I no joke lost complete feeling in my right arm the following morning…Couldn’t even move my fingers to turn off my alarm for work.
Finally we broke out a razor blade scraper. Straight from Heaven it was. This was still no quick job, but man did we start to turn a corner…I thought there was a possibility to finish this job in under a YEAR!!! 🙂 🙂 Then we had another lucky break….a guy I went to highschool has a family carpet business in our town…and he graciously sent me a young man who works for him and he pounded it out in about an hour and a half. I think about that young man often when I’m downstairs. I think he saved my life. I was so sick of sitting on that floor surrounded by glue and tears. I was so sick of the glue that I wanted to leave a warning for any future owners. Just say no. Back away from the glue.
Long story short, that young man saved the day…and we got right to work on laying the new flooring. We went with a peel and stick vinyl option from Lowes….and I have to say…I’m super impressed!!! We wanted to save money on this project but still have it look nice….Mission accomplished. We loved it so much that we also put it in the hallway so it would flow better.
Before we laid any of the flooring though, we primed the concrete so that the vinyl would stick to it. Don’t miss that step. Very important. From there, Jared made sure to make the first row level….because you can’t afford to make a mistake. Take your time! You’ll be thankful later. Peel and stick vinyl is just that…..peel the backing…and stick it to the subfloor. We used heavy objects to put on the rows as we went to help them adhere better….and it worked like a charm.
At this point, we took up the existing peel and stick vinyl in the hallway that the previous owners had laid. We found some pretty amazing original vinyl underneath. I was just absolutely devastated to lay new flooring over it….NOT!!!
I’ll leave you with that lovely green 70’s vinyl for now…..Check back for the final reveal!!!! 🙂 🙂 Christmas decorated and all 🙂
xoxo,
jess