fuck these floors. seriously, fuck them.

I can't get the linoleum unstuck from the floors. I tried steaming it off with a wallpaper steamer. All that happened was that several decades of dirt liquefied and turned into mud. I tried scraping it off with a tool whose specified purpose is that very thing. I just nicked a bunch of the boards and could only get the shit loosened where it was loose already. Sanding it off is an absolutely terrible fucking idea because, as I think I've mentioned previously, it's glued down with tar or something. I bought some acetone but I'm scared to use it because the warnings on the can essentially say my skin will melt off if I ever break the seal on the lid.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing and it sucks. Right now it seems like a compelling idea to try to sell the house for what I bought it for and call the many thousands of dollars of debt I've incurred improving it an experience tax. Everything is waiting on these stupid floors and I'm scared that I'm going to end up laying down tile or laminate or ugly fucking carpeting. I was sure there was a way to get the linoleum off, but if there is, I do not fucking know it.

An additional problem with the floors is the myriad giant fucking holes in them. There are holes in the pine, which is the top layer, and there are even bigger holes in the bottom layer, which I believe used to be oak. These have to be repaired, which involves cutting off and removing the top layer in a staggered pattern called finger weaving. And I don't know how to cut through the top layer without cutting into the bottom layer where it's still good.

This is the worst it's been. If I get the floors done and the master bathroom finished, I'm over the hump. I can call in some cut rate trim crew with a week's notice and get the house to a point where I can sell it with my sanity still intact. That's looking more and more likely. I don't want to be some douchebag yuppie flipping houses in a neighborhood that's already getting gentrified all to hell, but I've never wanted out so bad. I'm not really blaming the floors. I'm blaming my own ignorance.

Update: A lot of the time I think I bitch too much. Case in point. But you know what? It works. I write something like this and am ready to throw in the towel and the universe responds with, "Good LORD. I'm sorry you're too dumb to figure this out on your own. Here's a solution. Now shut up." It's kind of like a very noisy version of meditation. We'll see how it goes, but at least I have a strategy now.