Lindsey Buys a Fixer-Upper: Part 4, Flooring

By Lindsey Wolf Lunney

Last May, my husband and I unintentionally bought a major fixer-upper. In earlier posts, I talked about some of the problems we uncovered during our routine and not-so-routine inspections of the home. I hope my story will make the process easier for others who are thinking of taking on a big project like this one.

Replacing the Flooring

We knew from the start that we were going to replace all the flooring in the house except for the bathrooms and laundry room. As with many things during this remodel, I thought it would be easier than it turned out to be. I felt strongly that I wanted to eliminate carpet everywhere in the house. At Atlas Flooring, we found some beautiful tile for the kitchen and screened porch. We chose wood for the main and upper levels and LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile) for the lower two floors. LVT is waterproof, scratch proof, virtually indestructible, and it looks like wood. LVT was a good choice because the original flooring was linoleum, which contained asbestos. With the LVT, we could pull up the carpet and put this flooring on top of the linoleum, encapsulating the asbestos.

Another Hitch

But as I said before, this process was not as easy as one would think. When we pulled up the carpet in both the family room and porch, we found that the ground had settled. To fix that, Roger Cooper with Classic Floors poured concrete on top of both floors to make the surface flat and even. It was a good solution and the floors look amazing, but it definitely pushed up the price. Roger also installed the wood floors, and they look amazing!

Next: The Kitchen