About a year ago it became apparent we needed to replace our kitchen floor. The peal and stick tiles were popping up and the flooring under started swelling in spots. We didn't know what was going on. But I hated the floor and was happy to be forced to replace it with a much more appealing porcelain tile. Who knows how long we would have lived with that floor if it hadn't become a problem.
We had a few theories as to what was making the tiles swell. Possibly water damage from kitchen spills over the years, or maybe the people who installed it didn't know what they doing. Whatever the case, it needed to be replaced.
So we budgeted in the materials for the tile project. It was kind of funny how at exactly the time that we had enough money, we realized there was a bigger problem. The dishwasher was leaking!
Curtis took it out and started tearing up flooring to find this. Wet particle board. Moldy wet particle board. Nasty moldy wet particle board. YUCK!
After removing all of the wet particle board we put a fan on the subfloor to help it dry while we tried to figure out what to do next.
Clearly the only option was not the best option. But being that it was the only one, we decided to tear out the cabinets and see what was underneath them.
More nasty moldy particle board! Some mold starting up the walls and on the underside of the cabinets. It was a good thing we had no other options. Thankfully Curtis had lots of physical and informative help from a friend JR.
A funny thing about home improvement- you learn more than how to improve your home. For example, we didn't really know that we were "do it yourselfers" but it looks like we are. I think we always had this idea that if we had more money, we would just hire someone to do this kind of work for us. But the truth is, we like to do it ourselves and have the peace of mind knowing it was done right. Of course there are things that a professional would do better than us, but if we had more money, we'd probably just replace more and do more projects ourselves.
So all of the old stuff came out. We bleached, scrubbed, and Kiltz'd everything that was wet.
Good stuff!
The kids helped by watching tv for an entire weekend.
Then he laid plywood on top of the subfloor.
Put the cabinets back together and replaced any damaged wood on them.
And VOILA! The kitchen was a kitchen again. Now on to the tile!
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