Floor is complete!

We had been looking at the strip of tile between the two couches and decided since we were going to living with the plywood floor until November, it would be appropriate to do two things.  One, get the old tile out all the way forward to the captain chairs, and two, get the entire floor level and covered with smooth plywood.  So this weekend we accomplished that.  Only a couple burps along the way, of course, right?

We had to cut the tile across the front of the coach behind the seats to make a smooth edge, and started the process with an old, maybe 45 year old, Dremel tool that Vern gave Jan a long time ago.  Now this cut was about 4 1/2 feet long in hard porcelain tile with a diamond blade.  About half way across, it burst into smoke and flames!  It finally said enough is enough.  Which prompted a quick trip to Lowes to get a replacement.  We get back, pull the new Dremel out, try to insert the blade, and....no go.  I mess around with it, even break down and pull out the directions, and it explains there are 4 different collet sizes.  Damn, I must have gotten the wrong size in the kit.  I have Jan take a look, no luck either, so back to Lowes I go thinking something can't be right, why would Dremel put the wrong size collet in a package that includes 30 attachments?  I take it to the return desk, they can't make it work either, so they ask if I want to go over to tools and see if they can figure it out?  Sure, so over I go, and the lady comes over, looks at me as if I'm an idiot, turns the collet AROUND, and now we are all sure I'm an idiot, and it of course works perfectly!!  Oh well, only an hour or so wasted.  Go back, continue the cut, get it done, and now begin the tile removal, and you all know how much fun we have with this.  Well I get looking and come up with a new short cut of a plan.  Since we have to cut out and remove the top layer of OSB anyway, I wonder if we can just cut along the outside of the tiled area on both sides and just remove all of it in one piece??  

The last bit of tile.
The area where the tile is chipped out took well
over an hour, so I figured we'd cut it under where Bert is
and under the carpet on the right side, lift and remove.

So that's what we did.  Now understand the OSB layer is screwed down to the main 3/4" floor, and if we could make this work we would have to pop those screws out as well as raise the whole piece.  Got it cut, started prying, and even with both of us prying with 3 flat bars, we just could not get it up.  A quick run to see if Jack had a long bar, he usually has everything you could possibly want or need, sure enough he lends us a long bar, and pop, pop, pop, up comes the whole piece!

Tada!!

Now we have this piece that weighs over 100 pounds and has tons of sharp screws sticking out all over the back side.  No problem, Jan just picked it up and carried it out to the truck, well maybe I helped a little bit.
Once that was out it was no big deal laying new plywood, and then another layer on top to give us a flat floor throughout the motorhome for the first time since we started this project weeks ago.  We are now ready to live with it until November when we get our new hardwood floor installed.

Plywood going in

All done!

New plywood in the bedroom

Looking down the hall

It is quite a relief to have this project finally done.  We are so very pleased with the new tile and are looking forward to the hardwood.  We go over and look at Karen's every so often, just to visualize how beautiful it will look when it's all done.