Welcome pine wood floors!
The hallway and stairs were the last part of the house that had linoleum. They had the usual multiple layers, but unlike the rest of the house, the tiles were breaking all over the place. I finally couldn't take it anymore, and up it came (thanks Kaitlin and R2!). The downstairs was like the rest of the house - look at it funny, and it came up - but the tiles were glued quite firmly to the stairs, and the upstairs hallway was a layer of tile over pine paneling. Yes, paneling. Someone nailed it finish side down to the subfloor, and then tiled on top. So very odd.
Underneath it all, we found the same subfloor that's in the rest of the house. The subfloor was in great condition in the living and dining rooms, and it finished up very nicely. In the hallway, though, it was gappy, battered, and covered with mastic. Instead of struggling to finish it, we instead decided on new flooring. After a bunch of research (wow, flooring can be expensive), we went with engineered floors with a reclaimed heart pine surface. The engineered floor is plywood topped with the pine wood. It's as hardy if not more so than solid wood, can be refinished when necessary, and comes completely finished (no sanding dust!). It's a lot sturdier and I think less plastic looking than laminate. I slowly laid the floor over the past couple weeks, with a push from Mary to get it completed yesterday (thanks Mary!).
So, we went from this (incredibly old pic, can't find a more recent one):
to this:
The staircase will be ugly for a while - it's summer, I don't want to be inside sanding! - but will eventually have the ugly peach paint removed, get sanded, and then get painted. The floors still need edge molding, but that can wait until after summer as well.
Yay for no linoleum and an entry hallway that looks much less embarrassing!
