Five Rooms of Flooring Going Into the Dumpster

[norminn]

Good grief! The condo above us was just sold, for half the price the previous owner paid. The last owner spent about a year remodeling and redecorating...all new flooring, new kitchen, some changes in bathrooms. Now the new owner has hired a guy to take out all of the flooring. I understand the new kitchen cabinets will go, too. Makes me want to cry. I took a look in the dumpster...couldn't make out a brand name on it, only "Made in Germany". Looks new, tongue and groove. I think it all looks cheap, but perhaps this stuff isn't worth saving. I don't know the owner, or how to contact him, or I would suggest saving the stuff and offering it to whomever wants to pick it up.

[N8N]

Post a "curb alert" on Craigslist. At least the kitchen cabinets will go quickly. I could use a set myself for garage storage.

nate

[Ron]

Under "for sale">"free"

[h]

That's assuming the demo crew know how to remove things properly. I always cringe when I watch the DIY kitchen shows and see clueless DIYers removing countertops and cabinets with a SLEDGEHAMMER. Unless they were installed very strangely, they should just unscrew from whatever they were mounted to. I think it's terrible that people destroy perfectly good fixtures just because they're "dated". Sure, upgrade your kitchen, but you could at least donate perfectly serviceable fixtures to Habitat for Humanity or some other group. About 15 years ago we had an upstairs toilet tank crack and destroy half the kitchen while we were away. That's when we discovered that the cat sitter who was paid to come twice a day came only once every 2-3 days. Water had clearly been gushing for at least 48 hours. So...we had to replace the entire kitchen, but some of the cabinets and one of the countertops was just fine. They were good quality, although discontinued, WoodMode cabinets, and there were 6 of them. The HfH people were THRILLED to get them. They even came to pick them up. And we fired that cat sitter.

[mike]

Screws? Ha. You're more likely to face 1000 nails that are driven extra deep or covered with formica and adhesive.

[N8N]

I had to remove a cabinet in my kitchen to make space for a full sized fridge, and it was screwed to the wall, no goo. And if there was a shortcut that could have been taken, I bet the PO would have taken it.

nate

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, That is nothing. In my city, there is a neighborhood called Lakeview which is upper class. Most houses there are quite old but very well kept or renovated. Our family lawyer lives there. Near his house some family bought a house and tore it down to build a brand new one. When the house was almost done, this guy demolished the whole structure and started another different style house which is finished now. I still wonder about this.

[Stormin Mormon]

Out of a canon, I hope?

[h]

I've never, ever encountered a kitchen the cabinets and counters nailed on/down, and I've helped more than 10 friends rehab their old houses.

If it's supported properly on the floor or screwed into a 2x4, why on earth would you want/need it glued as well? These things are supposed to be removable/moveable, after all.

[aemeijers]

Very few kitchens in the last 40 years have field-applied formica. Very few people can nail UP inside a base cabinet. If not screws, countertop is most likely glued down with construction adhesive.

[mike]

There are plenty of houses that are more than 40 years old.

[mike]

My old kitchen had the counters nailed on with the formica glued on top of that. I don't think I found a single screw in the whole kitchen cabinetry except for the hinges and pulls.

[norminn]

There has been a lot of that in our area of waterfront properties. Very nice, older one story homes demolished and replaced by McMansions. The new homes are mostly three story and cover the property from side to side. They are truly hideous, too big for the lot and all seem to be designed with one of every type of window available...took a tour of one that was furnished with one brand of furniture that looked like it came in one package....like the stuff that used to sell for $200/room. Yuck! They look a heck of a lot different than a household that is a combination of early marriage, granny's gift, one special spree and the stuff we fought over before selecting :o)

[h]

Huh. My nearly 200-year-old house had some built in with nails, but that was mostly the "new stuff", like 1900 forward. Even the house up the road, which hadn't been revamped since the 1890s, had mostly screws. Their kitchen had been updated in the 40s, but everything in there was screws. Yeah, the hand-hewn beams in the basement are nailed with square nails, but I've yet to see a single square nail used anywhere except for construction/framing.

[clare]

If it is a quality cabinet - not a built-in-place-by-a -moron cabinet, the top WILL be screwed on, and the entire cabinet set should be easily removeable without damaging anything. And by quality - I mean just about any quality. The countertops are virtually all post-formed formica, not formica applied on-site to fabricated, nailed-together countertops.

[clare]

And then only if it is "solid surface" (coian etc) which is generally glued to plywood which is screwed on from below, just like a post-formed formica countertop. Even solid granit is usuallu quite easily removed without damaging either it or the cabinets.

[clare]

And a LOT of the over 40 year old kitchens were also built with post-formed formica screwed on from below. When you get to about 45 years you are starting to get into the built-in-place douglas fir plywood cabinets that are glued and screwed, non-salvageable and not worth salvaging stuff - but the vast majority of those have been replaced at least once already. Go back 50 or more years and you get the built-in-place solid lumber stuff - stick-built face-frame with frame and panel doors in a good number of houses - but again, the vast majority of those have been ripped out over the last 20 or more years.

- and they are not worth salvaging either, generally speaking. I DO have a roughly 60 year old kitchen cabinet in my garage as a workbench

- a stick-framed, built-in -place cabinet that had a nailed down (grouted, ceramic tiled plywood) countertop that lifted off relatively easily with a small crow-bar.

[aemeijers]

Believe what you want- I have seen plenty of kitchens, even ones where the cabinets were decent quality, where the pre-made formica-over-particle-board countertop was glued to the panels, face frame, and screw plates of the base cabinets, and nary a screw used. Lazy and/or ill-trained install crew, nothing more. When paid by the job, they cut corners. Ten minutes with the caulking gun beats an hour pulling drawers and climbing inside cabinets.

[benick]

My kitchen (1966) has built in place Birch Plywood cabinets with Formica over 3/4" Particle Board counters done onsite...Formica glued to the drywall all the way to the bottom of the uppers with crome trim on exposed edges and between counter and backsplash..LOL.....Everything is glued and nailed except the countertop which is screwed to cleats on the inside of the cabinets..Nice job too....Not gonna be salvageable I think...Sucks too as I could use them in the new garage when we get to the kitchen faze of the reno.......

[norminn]

In my condo, I can get in trouble just for breathing :o) The stuff belongs to someone else right now, in his rented dumpster. I emailed Habitat last evening, but haven't heard back from them yet. Now, the flooring is buried under the new vertical blinds, new ceiling fan, new white shag carpeting. On top of all of that are the BRAND NEW, NEVER USED white kitchen cabinets, most of which are being ripped apart before they go into the dumpster. The guys doing the demo work speak with foreign accent...Oh, and the granite counter tops are in the dumpster, too.