A floor stripper worth its weight in gold

摘要

My wife, Ellen, and I are no strangers to remodeling projects. In fact, each project is like a treasure hunt: We always wonder what we'll find. Although we continue to look for hidden money, we usually just find rotted wood. During a recent project, we didn't find any secret cash, but we did find buried treasure. Under the cabinets in the kitchen, we discovered a tongue-and-groove Douglas-fir subfloor thatlooked exactly as it had looked when the house was built (gorgeous), and we were inspired to save it. Question: Could we rescue the rest of the floor from its 60-year exile under two layers of linoleum glued down with black mastic? Answer: Yes. After learning the hard way that marathon sessions with expensive scrapers weren't very effective, we discovered the magic elixir, Safest Stripper by 3M (www.3m.com; 800-364-3577).