I had replaced the old dull circular saw blade with a new, carbide tipped blade and it made pretty easy work of the particle board and linoleum. Setting the height of the blade was also pretty easy because the plywood was exposed from the living room hallway. I started by cutting along the lines of the linoleum, two squares at a time. It was pretty easy to lift up an entire piece and not leave very many staples behind. This was a real blessing as the real hard part from earlier in the week was pulling out the staples. I had bought a new nail pulling tool, just to help pulling out the staples, fortunately I didn't need it as much. I tried cutting pieces three squares by three squares, and that was pretty easy too. I found out that three squares by four squares was NOT easy. So I just busted out the circular saw and cut back down to three by three. I also learned that since there are a lot of staples along the edges of the sub-floor sheets, it makes sense to cut large pieces on the inside of the stapled edge, and leave a two inch or so strip where the large quantities of staples are and just pry that section out a little at a time. That worked well as I couldn't get all the way to the edge along the wall, or under the cabinets. The new flooring was "coved" under the cabinets. When we started pulling up the linoleum we found a piece of wood nailed along the edge at a forty-five degree angle. We had to pry that board out and peel the yellow linoleum off the wall. One thing I was surprised to find is that the sub-floor extends under the pantry cabinet. We'll need to clean that up really well before installing new sub-floor. The biggest problem I haven't solved is how to keep the sawdust from making a mess all over the kitchen. I did sort of plan ahead and put the box fan in the back sliding glass door opening and open the window over the sink, and opening the front door, in order to force the dust to flow through the kitchen and not settle all over the place. I was marginally successful, but there is still dust in places there shouldn't be dust.
Ever since we replaced the stove ten years ago, we knew that there was brickwork pattern linoleum hiding under the yellow squares. When they installed the yellow linoleum they didn't completely cover the old tile under the stove, so it showed about two inches but we never saw the whole pattern. At one point tearing out the three by three squares we didn't put the pry bar all the way under the bottommost sub-floor and accidentally separated the newest floor from the second oldest.
If you look carefully you can see where I cut back the brick pattern and scraped off the glue between the brick and the original linoleum. I'm hoping to get a better view of that original linoleum. You know, sort of a history of linoleum in this home. I'm thinking about hiding some of the original linoleum under the new floor. Just to give the next homeowner a sense of how far their house has come since it was built. I feel like that guy in the Warner Brothers cartoon "One Froggy Evening" where he is tearing down a building and finds a dancing and singing frog. No one believes him, so he ends up putting the frog back in the foundation of the new building going up. Fast forward to the future and the future guy is tearing down the building using a ray gun, and this dancing and singing frog jumps out. This would be like that, except it wouldn't be a frog, it would be linoleum, and it wouldn't be singing, or dancing. OK, it's nothing like that. I guess this blog is sort of my way of making sure people believe me when I say that I have three layers of flooring in my kitchen.
Hopefully tomorrow I can get some yard work done before going at it some more. I am encouraged by the significantly reduced amount of work it takes to pull out squares of linoleum and sub-floor in the kitchen. There is still some thought that can be applied to improving the edges of the sub-floor and making it easier to get out. I'm thinking that maybe intentionally sawing through the staples by passing over the area with the saw every half-inch or so. Oh, and it will be really cool watching the sparks fly when I hit those staples!
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