Hardwood Floors Part 1: Removing Old Flooring

Removing the old flooring and cleaning up the mess that was left behind was a project of its own and deserves its own story.  The entry way already had engineered hardwood in a Gunstock finish, which incidentally was exactly what I picked out for the rest of the downstairs area, but in order for it to match well, this old flooring had to be removed.  It was only an area of roughly 6'x8', but it took the entire weekend to rip up.  Having to remove just this small amount of glued down hardwood was a big part of what influenced me to select a floating installation for the new flooring.

Difficulty Removing Glued Down Hardwood
Prying up the wooden planks in pieces was a very loud, slow process.  Very few planks could be coaxed up in one piece - many times the chisel would end up splitting the bottom laminate off from the rest of the plywood substrate and I would have to come back to remove the remaining splintered layer of wood along with as much glue as I could.  This would still leave a large amount of glue to be scraped off with razor blades over the next several weeks.

I took a break from chiseling and scraping to let my dad and Amy take a turn:

Mom woke up from her nap to pose for a picture: