Meet linoleum. Our new nemesis.

While Geoff and I were living in Annapolis, we used to joke that Northern Virginia (NoVA) was are arch-nemesis. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in that area can attest to this. Well, this weekend we met our new and improved nemesis - Linoleum.

Before we move into our new place, we want to update it a bit. The reason being that we got it off of a 92 year old man, and a lot has changed since 1966 when he bought the house. We decided we would start in the kitchen. Ben came up on Friday after work to lend us a hand. The work was easy breezy at first... We popped open a couple of cold ones, ripped a few cabinets off of the walls, and piled the remnants of the kitchen in the yard. We had no idea what was waiting for us under the indoor/outdoor carpet.

Saturday rolled around, and the first thing we realized was that we had to somehow get rid of the kitchen piled in the backyard. Luckily, we were able to find a plethora of unsupervised dumpsters to throw our junk in.  We then somewhat skillfully moved the appliances out of the kitchen and removed the kitchen carpet - fairly simple aside from the fact that we found numerous decomposing cockroaches underneath.   Seriously, who carpets the kitchen?!?!?! 


Then began the assent of our very own Everest.  It was before noon on Day 2 and the only thing in our way was the linoleum. We figured that it could not be that tough... I mean, the stuff was like 50 years old, right? Wrong. Geoff was the first to tackle that horrible, glued down flooring with our newly purchased floor scraper, while Ben and I came at it with the claw end of our hammers. After I took my hammer's claw to the knee, I decided I should head out to get lunch for everyone. By the time I returned, Geoff and Ben needed a break in the worst way. They were pouring sweat and hadn't really gotten anywhere. So... it was my turn to show the linoleum what was up... and I did. One floor scraper later, that stinkin' linoleum met its match!