I thought I would post some pictures of the island being torn apart. We didn't take any pictures of it all back together. that will have to wait until the next time we are up I guess. Of Course there are more pictures in our Gallery under Projects.

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Well things got a little crazy this weekend at the lake. We started out pulling up the rest of the linoleum in the kitchen, but that wasn't good enough. Somebody had us convinced that we can't live without a dishwasher, so I went out and got one to install as part of this project. I had taken some measurements, and thought it wouldn't be much of a hassle to make room for it.

I was wrong. The island in the kitchen was all custom built, and dropped in place as a single unit. In order to make room for the dishwasher I had to tear it pretty much completely apart. We did manage to get it all back together, and we have room for the dishwasher. I did break the faucet in the process though, so that will have to be replaced now. In the end, it wil lbe worth it, but it took most of the day Saturday to tear it apart, and get it back together, plus I still have some building to do around the dishwasher, and to make doors for in front of the sink.

I can never just keep projects simple, not that this tile was going to be simple anyway. I'll try to post up some pictures of the demolition later.

Well, we finally have all of our tile, and last weekend we started to work up at the lake. I started by laying out some tile to test the pattern, and direction that we want to use. So far we are very happy with the way it looks.


Once we were done playing with how it is going to look, it was time to get dirty. First step, remove all the trim, and tear up the linoleum. Piece of cake, I'll have that done in a couple of hours... Well, not as easy as I had hoped. The glue on the linoleum is remarkably strong considering it's 18 years old. So off to the hardware store I went. First I thought that a solvent of some kind to dissolve the adhesive would be a good idea. I bought some, but haven't actually used it yet. Heat was my next choice, and after a little testing with the hair dryer, we decided that would be the best route to get the linoleum up. So, back to the hardware store to buy a heat gun.
Armed with a utility knife, a 4 inch scraper and my new heat gun, we cut the floor into 4 inch strips, and started scraping. We didn't get as much done as we had hoped, but the majority of the kitchen area is complete. This weekend we'll finish off that area, the pantry, mud room, and maybe the downstairs bathroom. Here's a couple pictures of the process.


I can't wait to actually start tiling.