One Room Challenge: Week Three, a Goldfish Named Linoleum and Our Floorplan Revealed

It’s week three of the One Room Challenge, and things are getting real, real fast. I’m currently sitting in the space downstairs, surrounded by construction debris and the scent of Citristrip, trying to decide what to tackle next and attempting to make some quick design decisions about a room that is looking less and less like an inhabitable space. It gets worse before it gets better, right?

Here’s the reality of our current situation. We have two kids (ages four and one) and my husband and I are both attempting to work from home, and renovate a full suite, all without childcare. This means taking shifts in the evenings, and as soon as we get them settled into bed at night, setting up the baby monitor downstairs and scraping up linoleum until midnight. Why am I telling you this? Because I think it’s all too easy to romanticize this process with pretty pictures and slick videos. Don’t get me wrong. I love those things, but it’s also a messy process. Especially now.

On the upside, we are doing this because we really do need the space. With SIP and working from home, carving out an office and retreat that is functional and enjoyable to spend time in will be its own reward. Which brings me to this week. Have you ever heard the term swallowing the goldfish? No? Right. That’s probably because it’s a terrible phrase, but it essentially means getting the hardest, least enjoyable task finished first so you can move on to the parts that you do enjoy. This was the week of the goldfish. Our goldfish is named “Linoleum.”

The first thing that we discovered when we began to remove the flooring was the mold. It has always smelled musty in here (which I attributed to the gross carpet), and we had previously found mold when removing the wallpaper. This discovery meant clearing out the space nearly completely, covering sections with plastic sheeting, and being sure to work in a ventilated space with proper gear- in other words, it was a setback. That said, I am so grateful that we decided to remove the flooring because in discovering the problem, we can clean things up and create a safer environment for our family, which is much more important at the end of the day than any design plan.

The second thing we learned about linoleum removal is that it is a many-layered process. Once we removed the baseboards and were able to peel away the top layer- we found wedging a putty knife under a loose edge the most effective way to loosen it- we were left with the paper backing. In order to remove this, we slowly worked our way around the room with a wallpaper steamer; steam, scrape, steam, scrape. Finally, all that was left was the adhesive. We tried all of the internet recommendations we could find. Dutifully pouring kettles of boiling water onto the floor, trying out mineral spirits, giving it another pass with the wallpaper steamer. It was not budging. Another internet search turned up a tip involving using Citristrip, which we happen to have multiple containers of as we’ve been using it to restore the doors upstairs back to the original wood surface. We applied the goo, waited a bit, and had some limited success. Encouraged that it was doing something at the least, we tried covering it with a sheet of plastic and letting it sit for several hours (a trick we’ve used on the doors), and it came up more easily. Next, we tried poured boiling water over it after a good soaking period and… success! It worked like a charm.

We’re now at the stage where the mold is gone, and the concrete floors are nearly clean, though we still haven’t touched the carpet. We are also close to finishing up our build-out of the wall niche. I’ve created a floor plan for the space and settled on the final layout and have ordered most of the materials and pieces that we’ll need to complete the space, to account for longer lead times. If you’ve stuck with me through this saga, I promise I’ll have a prettier post for you next week!

Thanks for following along, you can find week one here, week two here, and check back next week for week four. You can check out the rest of the guest participants here or the amazing featured designers here. You can also follow along on Instagram by following #oneroomchallenge for some serious eye candy.