Our First Old House Buried Treasure

Alternative titles for this post include:

I Decided to Rip up the Vinyl Floor in the Bathroom

OMG, I’m about to Explode with Excitement About Tile

And my favorite REAL title for this post:

I found original white hex tile under our old ugly vinyl bathroom floor!!!

OK. I’m calm, I promise.

Can you believe I found hex tile in my house? I’m so excited I can barely contain myself to write this post.  But I will. Because I love to tell you a good story.

Picture this.

Hubs goes away for the weekend. Wife has been secretly plotting to do a mini makeover to the bathroom because we know she likes to do that kind of thing. Wife does mini makeover including paint the vanity, the mirror frame, window frame, light fixture and draws a cute octopus on a chalkboard for the wall. Pictures soon.

Wife steps back and admires the new room only to think… “This place would look so much better with a new floor. Let’s check to see what’s under this hideous vinyl.”

Now, to get the full effect I have to show you said vinyl so you can really appreciate the amazement of what I found underneath it. This is the bathroom we’ve been living in for 2 years. I’m over the shame.  I showed before pictures here.

Enter vinyl.

Brown. Yellow. Just the colors nobody wants in their bathroom. Look again, it’s terrible.

It just so happened there was a tiny corner curling up a bit behind the door that was just calling out for me to grab it with the pliers.

So I did.

And this is what I found.

Holy goodness. I’ve just hit the jackpot.

You have no idea how excited I was.  Now I know people uncover all kinds of treasures in their houses, especially old houses.  Crown molding under dropped ceilings. Leaded windows behind boarded up walls.

And now I’m in the club. The old house treasure club.

I mean people put this IN these days, they don’t find it under vinyl. Our house is 111 1/2 and we haven’t found any kind of old house stuff yet. It was perfect.

So I pulled back as much as I could. That stuff was stuck down for sure.  I’m still in shock so I’m just going to show you more pictures of what I did and what it looks like today.  Of course it came up easy at the edges. It always does.

 

I ripped out that vinyl faster than it takes to eat a pint of Ben and Jerrys. I grabbed the tin snips and pry bar and ripped. I didn’t care, that floor was coming out.

Of course the vinyl separated from the paper backing and the backing got left on the floor with all of the adhesive. Who cares though, I’ve got hex.

And I’ve got a big fat mess too. Don’t forget this is a surprise makeover and hubs is due home any hour.

So I had to get off the paper backing and adhesive. I tried lots of things but ended up using wallpaper stripper concentrate, water and a razor blade. Yes, on Labor Day I labored on my hands and knees on that floor scraping away paper and gunk.

I’m normally not this crazy in person I swear.

I’ll show you how I did it soon enough. This was my progress on day one, which I was happy enough with. That middle part is the paper backing still stuck to the tile.  Removing that paper and adhesive is going to take me forever and my triceps will be as toned as Michelle Obama’s but I don’t care.

I’ve got oceans and oceans (OK 32 square feet) of beautiful, white, (soon to be) pristine, grouted, hex tile in my bathroom!

Hubs wasn’t mad. “Honey, come see what I found in the bathroom…”

To be continued.