When you live in old house like I do, remodeling is always a
challenge and a surprise. I am currently involved in a major
kitchen remodel. Our kitchen like many kitchens, has seen better
days. It was installed in the house was built back in 1945 and
I'm sure it's has served its previous owners well. However,
modern kitchens are large and open. This kitchen, like most
kitchens of its era, a small enclosed off. We decided to open
the kitchen out by removing part of the wall, removing old tile
from the walls, and updating the entire kitchen with new
cabinets and appliances. Our first surprise came when we moved
the refrigerator from its current location. The refrigerator sat
up on a platform about 1 inch off the kitchen floor. We never
gave it much thought and assumed that it had always been like
that. When I move the refrigerator and lifted up the old
flooring, I discovered why. Plumbing from the sink did not go
through the floor to join a drain pipe in the basement. It did,
however, run across the floor and under the refrigerator. This
required some major engineering to move the drain line for the
new sink and dishwasher. Surprise number two was the ceramic
tile on the walls. The ceramic tile wound up not being ceramic
tile at all! It was tin tile that was glued to a masonite
backing board. The backing board was itself glued to the plaster
walls and nailed every eight to 10 inches. So while the tiles
came down very easily using just a screwdriver, getting they
masonite backing board off the plaster was a nightmare. Not only
were the plaster walls full of holes from the nails, big globs
of glue was smeared all over the walls. At first I tried
sanding. All that did was create a cloud of dust. After two
hours of creating dust clouds I had only managed in clearing off
a 2' x 2' square area. I talked to a number of contractors who
only shook their heads and offered me luck in removing the glue
from the walls. Someone suggested I use glue remover but I
didn't want the fumes in the house. Someone else suggested a
strong scraper but I wasn't strong enough to remove this glue.
Finally, someone suggested a heat gun. I was skeptical. How
would a little heat gun remove 60 years of hard and glue? Much
to my surprise, it worked! Now it didn't work easily. It was
still a lot of hard work, but by working slowly, and steadily, I
was able to remove all remnants of glue in about four days. I
hope this tip and technique helps you if you ever encounter a
similar situation. I know what I first started removing the glue
from the wall, I would get discouraged thinking it would never
end. However, by working slowly and steadily, I managed to get a
little bit done each and every hour. I took frequent breaks, and
went outside for a breather every couple of hours. It didn't
help that I was doing this in the middle of summer when the
temperature was in the 90s. However with perseverance, this task
can be finished easily. And if you do it yourself, you'll save
all the money that you would pay contractor to do the exact same
thing.
About the author:
Dean Novosat is an avid do-it-yourselfer and remodeler. He
writes for
http://build-decks-patios.com,
"http://for-gadget-guys.com"> http://for-gadget-guys.com,
http://gov-auction-advisor.com and
"http://www.the-kitchen-designer.com">
http://www.the-kitchen-designer.com.
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