If you can't take the heat...

So yesterday I spent the better part of my afternoon taking up two layers of vinyl from my kitchen floor. My mother-in-law and Justin's cousin Scottie helped. Justin's mom showed me how to use a heat gun... and they do get very hot! Poor Scottie, he was just dropping by to say hi, but he ended up helping anyway. (Thanks Scott!) With three sets of hands, we were able to get the entire kitchen floor up in a couple hours. It went from this...Sorry, one of the best pictures I have pre-floor.... to this...
Tonight, I need to clean up all the glue that was left behind. I put those long boxes down so I can still walk in there without getting stuck. Hopefully Justin will be able to lay the new floor in the next few days or so, although it's hard for him to get anything done on the weekends because he works so much...

As for the heat gun... It was my best friend in the whole world. I was pulling up two layers of tile in the time it would take me to do five or six one layer pieces. Heat guns are awesome BUT they are very, very hot. I accidently hit my elbow on it once after I set it down to cool off.
That was the fastest I moved all day. I jumped up and ran it under cold water.... ouch, ouch, ouch!!! If you are ever planning on using a heat gun, be careful! I got a nasty sun burn at mom's yardsale, so I had plenty of aloe on hand, which has helped a bit... but seriously ouch!!!! Unlike e hot glue gun, heat guns take hours to cool down. We finished up in the kitchen around 5:30 or so, and I went to bed around 10:30 or so, and even though I had unplugged the gun, it was still warm five hours later. YIPES! They are kinda dangerous, but we started pulling up the floor at three... The heat gun made it a 2.5 hour job... but I have a lot more respect for them now. Ouch :(

It will all be worth it when Justin puts in the new kitchen flooring. It's a pretty grey composite tile. It's gonna wrap down the basement stairs and into the basement as well. It will be very pretty when it's all done :)