I don’t know what your experience is with remodeling an older house, but I must admit it is easier reading about than doing!

As background, we bought an older home about 18 months ago and truly love the house. It is near 2000 square foot and was built in the late 70’s. For two people, we feel it is nearly the ideal size, whereby being retired, one of us can be in the kitchen and the other in the bed room and not disturb each other. Another huge advantage is when we have company, there is plenty of room to entertain. (Our nearest child is about five hours away.)

When we purchased the home, the 20X20 living room was divided from the dining room by a 4 inch by 3 and a half foot high divider, with spindles to the ceiling. While I am sure that the person that installed this divider was quite proud of their workmanship, it was not what we intended. Opening the dining room to the living room would give the term Great Room a whole new meaning. In fact, it would give us an “L” that would be some 31 feet long and would create an open and airy area.

That divider has been a constant source of conversation between the two of us for 18 months. My wife has been texturing some walls (entry way, hallway, etc) and finally I decided to get rid of the divider. Off to the Home Improvement Store to buy a reciprocating saw and within an hour of returning home, WALL DOWN! That’s right, by cutting the spindles, I was able to bring them down from the ceiling and from there, removing the divider was a piece of cake. The wall behind the divider was to be textured, so leaving a rather ugly verticle stripe where one of the spindles had been was not a problem.

The problem came on the floor. The floors are covered with Pergo and having a strip between the two rooms on the floor became very noticeable. Redoing a section of Pergo Flooring is not difficult, according to the internet, just lift, lay and away you go.

PART 2, THE FLOOR IN DAYS!

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