Scraping Along

Midmorning today I was glaring at the old dried-up vinyl flooring glue around the perimeter of my stairhall floor, and decided, oh, phooey, I've got the stuff, I'd give the radically-misnamed "EasyRelease" adhesive remover another shot.

Only this time I really disobeyed the instructions.  This time I mixed it with water one-to-one.  Thanks to that, or maybe because yesterday's application had some residual effect, this time it worked.

Not until after two hours of soaking with periodic reapplications, and not without a good three or four hours of scraping.  But at least today the scraping yielding results with less wasted effort and frustration than yesterday.

Didn't bother to sequester the kittens today.  Barricaded the wet strip with a very wide baby/pet gate a friend let me have when she moved.  But they got a whiff of the chemical and made themselves scarce.  But once I started working I barely prevented my going-on-14 calico from jumping down into the open heat register to explore the ductwork.  Oh, no, you don't!  Outside with you!  The dog, however, was content to watch from the front room. 

Started with the west wall.  Didn't start spraying the bit at the foot of the hallway bench on the east side until I started scraping the first application.  I was thinking maybe it might help to keep the work area wet.

Maybe it did.  At least, I got the result I wanted-- the old adhesive off the floor.  I also got a few gouges in the plywood, but the filler material will deal with that.  At this moment, I Do Not Care.