Our Vinyl Floors

Years ago as we started adding on to our home, we carefully saved money and did things as we could afford it.  When it came time to put down flooring in the whole addition, we looked and looked for something that I could easily put down myself, was waterproof (think farm, many children and many house dogs!)  and durable.  What we settled on was a very popular, name brand, vinyl plank flooring found at all box home improvement stores.  A very well know brand indeed.  It was very easy to install and needed no underlayment and it was a floating floor.  It looked great and truly was all it said to be.   We liked it so much we put it down in the whole addition and all but three rooms of the trailer side of our home as well.  Here is Zeke playing on these newly laid floors when he was little.

These floors were however supposed to hold up for 15 years but did not.  Now, I know they were not counting on a family as large as ours living on it daily in our home schooling, farm type life.  But none the less the top layer quickly wore thru in a few years and we were left with ugly. 

Now these floors are still functional for our family so I was not very upset about it all.  They just looked bad and I didn't have time to really give much thought to it in our busy life.

Life finally slowed down enough two months ago for me to see my kitchen needed some love.  So I refinished the cabinets and put new hardware on them.  I was starting to think about what to do with the flooring and was trying to find a glue that would stick to this type of vinyl so I could over lay something inexpensive on it but not pull up all that existing vinyl flooring.   Yes, I was feeling a bit lazy there.  BUT...as I was researching this topic, I stumbled upon a forum where many people have been made very sick by having this particular flooring in their home.  All of them ended up having to rip it out of their homes in order to try to get better.  I did not know this but vinyl off gasses always and breaks down always because it is  made from petroleum.  That is why not many glues will stick to it.  But what was even worse was that this particular company makes their vinyl plank flooring from RECYCLED VINYL FROM CHINA!!!  I started thinking...We have this flooring in our school room.  EVERY hamster we have ever had housed on any lower shelf has died with in months.  It was a huge mystery to us...They were all different types of cages and different types of hamsters, all year round.  We also lost a young parakeet that was housed lower than normal so Antonio could watch it.  We never figured it out so just stopped putting pets down low in there.  Then I started thinking about my family.  I never had these terrible auto immune issues before we put in this flooring, and William, who has struggled for several years with a mystry illness (auto immune) never had this before we put down this flooring. 

I know I have no proof other than a gut feeling.  I know this might sound over the top.  But I am going to start ripping up our vinyl plank flooring and do something else with our floors.  If not for possible health issues with whats currently on them, they also would look much better with something else down anyways.  We have very little extra money to do this (who does now days?) but I feel we need to do this, the sooner the better.  We have saved some money back to tile Antonio a handicap bathroom that would make his care so much easier.  So all extra funds have been going there right now till that project is finished in late April.  But Tim and I agree we are going to do some safer, cheap, flooring to get us by till we can afford to do something better, some day down the road.

I know this is going to be a time consuming project and with two toddlers in our home now and all my other daily responsibilities, I know it is going to take God helping me every day in every way...Just as He faithfully does already.

Joshua 1:9  Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

 

Blessings, 

 

susan