After taking one load (aka truck bed full) of brick and other kitchen debris to the dump and coming back $48 lighter, Mark decided that rather than literally throw our money in give our money to the dump, we could just “bury” the rest of the kitchen demo debris under the subfloor between the footers. That means, of course, that it was time for the rest of the floor to come up. 

We had already removed the not-nailed-down-at-all carpet.

To reveal this stunning tile job that Bruddah is showing off here.

Given that we know that these tiles were installed either in the 1960’s or 70’s makes us pretty confident that they likely have asbestos in them. *Yay*  Asbestos is not good times for sure, but we decided, after some research, that if we worked quickly and wore protective garments and masks, we would most likely not get mesothelioma. #notgettingcancerforthewin.

In order to remove the tiles, Mark would take his saw and cut the tiles between the footers to make a narrow row.

Then he would use a crow bar to pry the tiles up from the footers. 

It was not easy work. The tiles were heavily nailed to the footers, it was hot (like 95 degrees hot), and he was wearing a mask and tyvek suit. When he was done, he literally dumped sweat out of his mask. Sorry if that’s TMI.

He was about 3/4 of the way done when I took pity on him and helped pull and remove the last 1/4.

When we were finally done the floor looked like this.

And we looked like this.

Not a pretty picture. This was tough work you guys. Mark is my hero for doing so much of it himself. This is the type of glamorous, semi-dangerous, work that those DIY shows never tell you about. And the fun is not over. We still have to demo the rest of that kitchen before we can move on shoring up the footers and laying the subfloor. 

Here’s some good news though, our new windows are in!  We will be picking them up later this week and I will have a whole post on the process of picking out and getting a good deal on new windows. You know you want to hear all about it. It’s a real nail biter!