The carpet in the back hallway, the main hall of the house, wasn't great to begin with. It was a light cream color that of course held the stains of many years. We thought it might be nice to pull up the carpet and put down flooring that could handle all the dirt tracked in from the back.

The decision was sealed when one or more of the cats decided to pee at the back of the hall near the bathroom.

We tore up the carpet to find what looked like original wood under half, and plywood covered with linoleum under the other half. The back four feet or so of the house is an addition that was made in the 1970s, and you can clearly see the lines of demarcation.

The linoleum peeled up easily, bringing all the gummy crusty carpet crap with it, but clearing off the old wood was, pardon my language, a bitch. We tried a scraper, a sander, a blow dryer, a heat gun, mineral spirits, and some kind of chemical remover, and nothing did the trick. A reddish residue remains on the wood and just isn't coming off. So we decided to put down a 1/4 inch concrete board to cover both parts of the existing hallway and make a nice level place to lay the tile.

I pulled off all the trim along the floor and beside the doors. We'll have to get new trim, because I pretty much destroyed what was there. Then I spent a good hour yanking out nails and carpet staples.

Next, I needed to make a pattern to use to cut the concrete board, since the hallway is not a perfect rectangle. I used a roll of brown paper to trace the outline of the hall.

Stay tuned...

Why it took weeks, I don't know, but finally I got the concrete board cut out and laid down in the hallway. Notice the very attractive safety glasses on my head, that I put on after a pebble of concrete smacked me pretty good in the eye while cutting the board.

I pulled up extra carpet and uncovered some really nice wood, but it still just won't come clean enough to leave alone. Ripping the molding off the walls and doorways is fun and destructive.

Next up is to nail the concrete down and then tile over it. That can't be too tough, can it?

I finally nailed the concrete down over the weekend. Pounding and pounding with a hammer is fun and relieves stress, except when the nail bends and goes in crooked and then you get angry and just whale on it with the hammer.

Two nights ago I drew chalk lines to find the proper angles to lay the tiles, and tonight I finally got started. I laid down half of the hallway. The other half will be for tomorrow or maybe Thursday.

The tiles looked so nice in the store and in our imaginations, but you can see that in use they just might clash a lot with the paneling... However I don't even want to think about taking down the paneling at this point.

I'd only ever intended to tile part of the hallway, and mainly as a semi-temporary measure (as in a year or so) but I think we'll go ahead and do the whole thing. Over half is finished, and tonight we pulled up more carpet and put down five more feet of cement backer board. Over the weekend we also got paint in "Summer Rye" -- a slightly buttery cream color for the walls that will hopefully go better with the tile.

Tonight I plan to tile the new five feet of hallway, and hopefully start priming the walls tomorrow, but I have to wait until my finger stops throbbing. I hit it good with the hammer. Rick nailed down the rest of the board without incident.

One coat of "Summer Rye" has successfully been applied to one small wall. Rick sanded the back wall of the hallway, which had been pretty well destroyed by errant darts, and I filled in at least a hundred little holes with wood filler. Then he sanded again, and I primed and painted. I love the color. It already looks sunnier, even though that hall's pretty much the darkest place in the house. How it looks with the tile is still up in the air, since I haven't taken up the drop cloth yet. And the full effect won't be realized until we put baseboards back. I'm thinking the baseboards and the molding around the ceiling in a light chocolatey color...

I primed half of another wall tonight, as well as my chest, the top of my head, and my lip.

With Rick's help I've painted the whole right wall, the back wall, and most of the left wall. I really like the buttery color, which you can see really well on the right wall in this picture if you can block out Tom and Matt goofing off. :)

We still need to pull up carpet and lay tile on about three more feet of hallway, and once that and the painting is done, I want to put the baseboards and the molding back and paint it a slightly darker color to tie in to the tile.

October 10

This project has languished for a while but I'm trying to resurrect and complete it. We purchased the paint for the baseboards and the door trim (it's an orangey brown called "Chutney") and I've painted one set of door trims already, though not installed it yet. I thought that first I ought to finish tiling the hallway. So... last night I finally ripped up the remaining carpet and the wood strips the carpet had been nailed to.

Tonight, I hope to be able to scrape the debris off the floor enough to start laying down and nailing the cement backerboard. I may also try and prime the remaining lengths of wall (between one of the bedrooms and the end of the hall, and the end of hall wall itself).