9/15/08

Renovation help needed

We are on to the next and much harder stage of refurbing the oak floor and we need advice please.

The remaining small area in the dining room and hallway has linoleum glued onto it. Removing the actual linoleum is easy, but the paper that remains and the glue is much harder.

Our expert floor lady said to try dampening the glue to see if it's water soluble, we have and we don't think it is. Otherwise she said we will have to strip it with turps or paint stripper. She will then sand the area and it will look fine after the finish is applied.

My question is - anybody out there ever done this and got any advice, quicker methods or tricks you can share with us please?

11 comments:

AndieB said...

Peter suggests using a heatgun and scraper?!?!?!

Tess Kincaid said...

It looks to me like you should rent a professional floor sanding machine.

Anonymous said...

http://www.infotile.com.au/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001971.html

Try this message board....

Anonymous said...

OOps sorry you may have to go to www.infotile.com and read the forum section.
It recommends several products, from Home depot which remove linoleum tile residue...

Posh Totty said...

Just popping in to say hi, I was sent here via the black box :o)

Scotty Graham said...

Sarah,

Don't know much about flooring, so can't help you there, but just wanted to thank you for all your nice comments in my blog. It wasn't until yesterday when I realized you left a bunch of comments on many of my photos...I appreciate that.

What a nice surprise it must have been to find a nice oak floor under your carpet...I wonder why the previous owner covered it up? Good for you...

Cheers,

Scotty

Janet said...

I agree with Andie. I had an
1820's cottage in England with some fabulous woodwork, walls and floors, and beams. We stripped it all with a heatgun, scraper, and an orbital grinder, followed by lots of sanding and multiple layers of varnish. A lot of work, but the end result was sensational.

PS Those floors are well worth the effort.

Leslie: said...

Gee, I have no pearls of wisdome here for you. But what's done so far looks fab.

Anonymous said...

This is the first post of yours that I've read - I came her inside the Black Box - but it looks like you're renovating a house. We've done this. It's a lot of work, isn't it? We had some nasty surprises, not too many nice ones, so I'm happy for you that you found a quality oak floor!

With something that nice, I'd always take the advice of a professional, but maybe I'm just being over-cautious. Sanding and refinishing sounds like the right thing to do.

Stacy at Exceedingly Mundane said...

We had this and only one thing worked for us - Krud Kutter. We pulled up the vinyl/linoleum in our kitchen, breakfast room, laundry and bathrooms about 3 or 4 years ago. There was a nasty layer of paper backing and adhesive left in some area. We scrubbed and scraped and wore ourselves out. A neighbor suggested the Krud Kutter, which worked great. My husband got it at either Home Depot or Lowe's. We aprayed it on and sometimes we had to do two coats, and still use a bit of elbow grease, but our floors were totally free of the paper and glue after we were done. Down to bare concrete.

Hope that helps!

Unknown said...

Thank you wonderful people for all the good advice, here's what we're thinking so far:

Heatgun we think would work, but we are a bit concerned about using it on wood flooring with an unknown adhesive on, both from a safety aspect and that it may badly darken the wood?

Sanding can't be done whilst the glue is still on there, but will be professionally done afterwards.

Josephine - thanks for that link, I will check it out.

Stacey thanks for the Krud Kutter tip, I am off to investigate it.

We do agree with you all though, that it's going to be so worth all this effort.