A very long story about a new floor

The real headline on this post ought to read, "I hired someone to do work on my house!" Because, for basically the first time ever, I paid someone to fix something in my house. I have this amazing 1960's vinyl sheet flooring. When I first moved in, I started ripping it out because I thought there was hardwood under it. When I discovered that wasn't the case, I stapled down the edge and decided to deal with it later. The line of gigantic staples made this 1960's floor look even better, let me tell you.

Fast forward three years. I am convinced that when I try to sell the house in the future, a real estate agent will tell me I have to make the floor less offensive, and I decided to do it now so I could enjoy it as well. as well Furthermore, I decided that I would hire someone to do the work, because cutting flooring to exact measurements does not play to my strengths. (I am a persistent DIYer, but I am not always an accurate DIYer.)

I chose my new flooring, arranged to hire someone, and then scheduled the measurement, delivery, etc. This involved many phone calls to different subcontractors, and every time I talked to a new person, I realized that there was part of this I could do myself. I'm paying $200 to remove the old floor? Cancel it, I can do that myself. I'm paying $100 to have the materials delivered? Cancel it, I can do that too. Eventually I reduced the price by 50%, and I was only paying for installation and materials.

So, getting ready for installation, I rip out the yellow, 1960's floor and the underlayment, which is attached by approximately eleventy hundred nails that have to be pried out. This exposes the next layer, the 1950's floor...

 ...which is actually kind of beautiful and vintage but the eleventy hundred nail holes mean I can't save it. So I remove that.

Now I'm down to the subfloor covered in some black gooey tarpaper stuff. For context, subfloor is the wood underneath your main flooring (whether that is carpet or hardwood or vinyl flooring). It's just there to support your floor, and therefore is not pretty. It's usually made of plywood these days, but when my house was built, subfloor was made of actual wood boards.

I'm ready for the installation. I arrange to work from home, move the appliances, and then the installation guy arrives to tell me that actually, he can't install the flooring I've chosen. My floor is too unstable and the new vinyl wood planks will not attach well. He does, however, tell me that the boards I have exposed are not subfloor, but actual wood flooring from the 1940's.

Quickly changing the plan, I get some quotes, find a floor refinisher, and have him refinish the softwood floor. It's got a farmhouse feel, because there are lots of sealed nail holes and different colored wood, but I'm pleased with it. It's warm looking, I was able to use what I already had instead of buying a bunch of new plastic flooring, and hopefully it will attract, rather than repel, future buyers some day.

All in all, a happy end. But hiring people turns out to be much more work than I expected. So I guess I'll keep DIYing as much as I can.