How not to install a floor

In our bathroom, on top of the regular subfloor, there was a second layer of subfloor, which had been attached via construction adhesive and screws. Then there was a layer of incredibly ugly laminate, which had all the charm of a sixties kitchen, which is interesting because the house was built in 1981. Next was some kind of green layer, which was either another badly conceived flooring concept or some kind of glue layer which had separated. Then another layer of laminate, this one a nice fake-looking fake tile motif. Then the cement board and top layer of ceramic tile. (To be fair, the ceramic tile had actually been done well, we just didn't care for the 30s geometric look when it didn't match anything else in the house, plus at this point the whole thing was about seven inches off the ground. (exaggerating.) (but only slightly).)

The whole thing was kind of like a horrible parfait. 

The top two layers (the cement board and tile) came off beautifully, much better than I'd dared to hope. The rest of it, however, put up the hardest fight of anything in the house so far. 

We have a wonderful friend named  Daniela who is volunteer fire fighter and thus very strong. She came to help us the other day, and we attacked this floor, and may I just say, she rocked it. It took her and her two crowbars and hammer, plus me and my pry bar and mallet, and both of our brute strength (she contributed about 70% of the total brute strength) to get that thing out, and sometimes we even had to call in reinforcements in the form of Jack taking a break from plumbing. The way we ended up getting it out was to literally disintegrate every piece of plywood away from the original subfloor splinter by splinter. I completely understand why the previous homeowners have all layered. I came dangerously close to giving in myself, but in the end we persevered and this floor will be done properly, without anybody needing a stepstool to get into the bathroom. 


Thank you, Daniela, for your amazing tenacity and skill wielding two crowbars!