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Ahh! Linoleum! My poor fingers and thumbs. I can still feel the pain even though it was ages ago. My husband and I had bought an old house to renovate. The floor was covered in ancient linoleum which had been stuck down. I was given the important job of removing it.

Easy! I thought. It had started to come unstuck at the edges, so I started pulling strips off. All was going well for a short time until I got to the stuck-on parts. Next I tried to cut it away with a Stanley knife. I only managed to put a deep cut in my thumb. This required several stitches, so it was a few weeks before I started back on my quest to rid the floors of the dreaded linoleum.

My husband had banned the Stanley knife and presented me with a sharp chisel, a paint scraper, and a kitchen scourer. I was never one to give in to a challenge, so each night when I arrived home from work, I went down on my hands and knees to attack the killer lino, while my husband prepared our dinner. He knew he was on to a good thing cooking in the kitchen while I sweated in the corner on the floor.

I was determined to prove that girls can do anything', and with my trusty tools and my iron-clad will, I managed to rid the kitchen floor of all the linoleum in just a few months. The only thing remaining on the floor was all the glue which was set hard.

Then my darling husband presented me with a basket of old rags and a four gallon drum of thinners. I set to work, and over the next month, with the tantalising aromas of my husband's gourmet cooking wafting around the kitchen masking the vile smell of the thinners, I had removed all traces of the linoleum and glue, and we were left with beautiful timber floorboards ready for their final beauty treatment, a sand and polish by my husband. Truly a labour of love!

Learn more about this author, Patricia Young.
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