A brief history:
We have about the cheapest carpet made down on the floors in the house that date to when we had the house build 8 1/2 years ago. As we made the carpet selection -- mostly what color of cheap carpet -- one thing we did do right was to listen to suggestions and upgrade the padding. That decision turned out to pay for itself many times over.
Now, with 2 kids and 8.5 years of general use, there are well-worn tracks in the carpet where even the upgraded padding can no longer compensate having been broken down under the relentless traffic. There are stains that give rise to fun memories yet which "decorate" the high-use areas. And now that the kids are proficient walkers we don't feel the need to keep the same level of "crash zone" padding around.
In short, it's time to bring in the wood! You can read my wife's post on the agony of making the decision on what to do and where to stop. Keeping this down to a reasonable size... (yeah, right)
Monday: New patio door (in this case, French doors) installed, with a defective astroglade (sp>) unit -- it's the thing that holds the door closed by pushing rods into holes in the door jam.
Tue-Thur: catch up at work for time lost to door install.
Thur pm: bug very good friend to help pick up plywood underlayment to level floors. After he comes over, while not feeling tops, we make the clarification that the underlayment is 4x8 sheets of plywood that won't fit in his SUV. (BTW, I'm extremely grateful for his willingness to help and I will make it up to him)
Now for today's recap:
6:30 - out of bed, help with morning routine
7:45 -take kids to daycare
8:15 - back home, time to start working!
9:10 - complete Tetris game to move the furniture out of the 2 rooms getting the new laminate flooring.
10:00 - Completed removing baseboards (minus the one behind the refridgerator that will come out when I get to working that part of the floor)
10:25 - cut-out and removed the largest square of carpet which is then in a lump in the middle of the garage.
10:36 - grumble and groan after vaccuming up a cigarette butt that was closed up behind the baseboards.
Noon - OOOOOWWWW! Most of the carpet padding is now removed, way too many staples removed (needle nose pliers and I are now really good friends).
12:35 - after 3 phone calls, clean-up of pulled staples and padding, along with removal of a few stragglers, is completed. Time to go shopping for the plywood and maybe some lunch.
1:00 - decided to pull up an additional section of old linoleum to see just how bad that effort would be and to expose the transition area. Finally going for lunch and flooring.
1:20 - 3 - The trip to the store didn't work out as smoothly as planned. I picked out the plywood, went to rent a truck to bring the full sheets home, found out my insurance card needed to be updated to the most current one which I had already paid for. Purchased the wood and placed it on hold for pick up later. Returned home, dug through the pile of mail to find the cards. Returned to the store, rented and loaded the truck. Returned home again, unloaded wood. Searched owner's manual for type of gas the truck uses (required to bring it back at same level on tank with accompanying gas receipt). Giggle at the fact it took as long to figure that out as to load, move and unload the wood. Buy 2 gallons of gas. Return the truck. Wait for it to be checked back in. Guess what... I went a whopping 9 miles. While waiting for check-in, laughed with sales clerk because the hadn't written down my departure time and were surprised I was back to soon.
3ish -4:15 - Valentines part for both kids at daycare.
4:30ish - show kids around the floor, cover dangerous areas, coverse about plans for the night, and return to working by starting to lay plywood.
6:20 - dinner break - Pizza in the basement.
6:50 - back to work with lots of cuts (corners, vents, etc) on the docket.
7:30 - kids meltdown, stop work for the night, put kids to bed.
9:00 - for whatever reason, type this up.
On the plate for tomorrow:
All the complicated cuts of plywood.
Plan out if we're going to do closets, a hallway, etc. and finish preping those areas (or leave them as-is)
Finally get to laying laminate and pray it gets done.
No comments:
Post a Comment