My wife noticed as I sat down in my recliner that I had a pen and a clean sheet of paper in hand.

“Are you making a to-do list?” she asked. “Why? There’s only one thing on your list.”

True enough. When I’m into a project like tearing up the ceramic tile floor in our kitchen, it becomes my regular job. I get up, have my coffee, feed the barn cats, bring in firewood, and start busting up tile. I’m not saying I work constantly, or like a maniac. I’m a patient plodder.

I guess because we built it ourselves, for a long time I continued to think of our house as new, but that was more than 40 years ago. Things wear out, leak, break. I procrastinated on replacing the roof for 15 years. That done, I’ve gained some momentum for renovating other things.

In a previous column I described how I recently painted our home’s ceiling between Halloween and Thanksgiving from atop three sections of scaffolding without Honey noticing, a feat of legerdemain which cleared the way for new flooring. She has wanted laminate throughout for years; “luxury vinyl” planks with built-in padding are all the rage now, so that’s what we’re getting.

The ceiling done, drop cloths folded up and scaffolding gone, our house enjoyed a brief period of normalcy going into the holidays. On Saturday, two days after Christmas, grandsons Lamppost Head, his brother The 747 and I tore into the kitchen tile. Honey had told them and the other grandsons that she was going to hire them to tear up the tile and carpet, and pay them for their labor. They all said they would help but not for pay. Trust me, they will be paid. Their grandmother’s will is stronger.

Lamppost Head helped me move the refrigerator out from the wall and began taking up the tile underneath. There was old water damage to the underlayment from ‘fridge leakage, causing hodge-podge tile replacement. Some came up easily but others had to be chipped out. Lamppost Head seems to have inherited some of my steady, plodding persistence, while his action-oriented brother, The 747, attacked his section of tile like an angry badger. A mandate to destroy something is not the worst job for a boy.

After watching a few internet videos on tearing up ceramic tile, I had filled a five-gallon bucket with tools I thought we might need: hammers, chisels, scrapers, chisels, pry bars, and even a small pneumatic chisel. Most were not helpful, but a couple of videos suggested using hatchets. The technique is to lay the hatchet head almost flat and drive it under the edge of a tile with blows from a hammer. It is hard, tedious work and generates flying ceramic shrapnel, but the learning curve is short and I’m a low-tech kind of guy anyway. The sturdy pry bars proved good for chiseling stubborn mortar off the plywood. The oscillating head of a multi-tool that I’ve had for years and never used took off the remaining high points without kicking up dust.

My wife has lined up her bookstore handywoman to lay the luxury vinyl plank floor once we clear off the tile and carpet. She is experienced with this flooring and is something of a perfectionist. (We call her The Precrastinator because she is the opposite of a procrastinator. Mention a job to be done and she has already started.)

Talking on the phone, The Precrastinator spoke of a long-handled tool for loosening tile from a standing posture. That reminded me of an odd tool that I bought at a yard sale years ago: an antique horseshoe-shaped metal head with a stout pickaxe handle. The prong ends of the “horseshoe” are flat and thin to drive under the tile.

“I didn’t know what it was, but I had to have it,” I told my wife when I had fetched this implement from the garage. Standing also allowed using a small sledge to drive the prongs. It is a very useful implement indeed, and an alternative to sitting on the floor to hammer a hatchet head.

Lamppost Head and The 747 made good progress in our two hours of work. Then son Seed texted that he was coming over with his boys Bob and The Favorite. Seed especially liked the antique tool I found. He thought standing on the tile while driving the prongs helped remove it in one piece.

When they left 90 minutes later an area of cleared plywood floor stretched from the living room carpet to the kitchen stove. I was happy but quite tired.

“I can’t believe we got this much done in a few hours,” Honey chirped.

Working over the week since then, I estimate 75 percent of the tile is off, though most of the tedious job of chipping off mortar remains to be done. Our heavy oak china hutch and the chestnut dish cupboard still sit on tile, but Honey has carted off their contents, mostly dishes, so they can be moved.

Another week or so and grandsons will joyfully begin ripping up old living room carpet.

This old dome house should have a nice new floor well before the winter’s last snow melts off.