PAINTER: Remodeling takes perseverance, learning from mistakes

It all began with the bathroom.

We had been noticing that the vinyl flooring near the toilet was becoming spongy. The time had come to address this problem.

My wife, Marilyn, and I are not very handy around the house, so we sought help.

Our son, Casey, had the answer. His friend, Adam Schenk, works in construction and was willing to help us out.

Adam discovered that the seal attached to the bottom of the toilet had deteriorated to the point that water was leaking into the floorboards. He replaced all of the boards and fixed the toilet.

Casey thought it would be a good idea to tile the bathroom floor instead of using vinyl flooring. Adam was good at tiling as well, so we went that route.

Everything went according to plan. We didnt mind (too much) with having to go without a bathroom for two days.

With the bathroom project completed, we decided to expand our laundry list of things that needed to be done in our house. When you have a house that is 100 years old, there are a lot of things that need to be done.

Casey suggested that we refinish the floors in our kitchen, dining, living rooms and downstairs bedroom. We thought that that would be a great idea since we had already pulled the worn-out carpeting in our living room and bedroom. We also decided to paint the bathroom and kitchen.

Our original intent was to pull the vinyl flooring in our kitchen and refinish the wooden floor. But after we removed the vinyl flooring, we discovered another layer of vinyl flooring that looked like it was from the 1930s. We did some research and found out that flooring that old was often made with asbestos, so we came up with an alternative plan: We would have Adam tile our kitchen floor.

The rest is here:
PAINTER: Remodeling takes perseverance, learning from mistakes