Progress Towards Sore Muscles

On Friday evening our landlord, C came over to start work on our new laminate flooring.

J had a previously arranged work dinner meeting, so C and I got started without him. C started to rip up the carpet and padding, while we talked about future projects. 1. New tile in the kitchen, both bathrooms, by each door, and in front of the fireplace. 2. Eventually putting new cabinets in the kitchen, and 3. putting in a new granite counter top in the kitchen. (Saturday we even took a look at tile, granite, and cabinets!)

We will eventually do work on the outside of the house, because as C said, we need new siding.

[nice]

After J got home around 8:30 / 9:00 pm on Friday, C and I had all the carpet, padding, and tack strips removed, rolled up, thrown in the trash and out of the way. We had even swept. up. all. the. dirt. and. dust. J missed that lovely part too. That's okay though, he did a lot of work over the weekend.

A little cement to raise the area, but
that was the only spot that needed it.

Why oh why didn't I cover things with sheets or towels? I'm still asking myself this, because the dust flew everywhere. On us, on the counters, my desk, and *shudder* my computer! I cringed when I felt the top of my keyboard and mouse. It gave me the chills, like fingernails scratching across a chalkboard. Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

No carpet!

Seriously, that dust was everywhere, and I mean everywhere. When I blew my nose later, after sneezing a few times, I could see specks of dirt. YUCK! Thankfully I had taken an allergy pill, so that helped.

[Too much info, I know!]

I guess gray specks are better looking than the blue boogies I remember from using chalk pastels in college. (I had drawn a piece that was mainly blue, so that would explain the color in my nose.)

[wink]

The hallway.

Saturday morning J and I woke to get started on another day of work. C came over and fortunately/unfortunately our AC was out. That wasn't good because it was hot and humid out, so laying laminate was even more tiring.

The good thing, was that C could witness and feel what our AC has been doing for about a month and a half. That helped him better understand what we've been dealing with. After the second day of being here with the AC going out, C called the AC repairman and told him that this. has. to. get. fixed. very. soon. No more procrastination. I agree wholeheartedly.

** D, the AC repairman finally came out today! He is going to contact the manufacturer of our unit to see what the real problem is. Right now, it seems to be a faulty part. **

Saturday morning, the beginning.

Progress!

Progress seems slow because there are many things to take into consideration. The lines and board pattern need to look nice, not evenly lined up. Boards have to be trimmed, and we needed to leave space for quarter-round, and the transition pieces, plus the remaining carpet in rooms that needs to be tacked down again.





One thing we will have to get use to is Kira's nails clicking on the floor. She will need to get use to how slippery it can be. It's interesting to see how carefully she is when she runs to get a toy. I'm sure this will provide plenty of entertainment in the future.



For Sunday, our intent was to get up, go to church, and then come back to help C get as much as we could with the limited time we all had.

This is what really happened:

We woke up, exhausted and extremely sore, not feeling our best. Instead of going to early service, we decided we would get a bit more rest and then go to the later service. Unfortunately we ended up sleeping too late. I guess your body lets you know what it needs, no matter what you have planned. Eeek!

C showed up a little after 12:00 pm, and we got back into the rhythm of laying boards. J and C were the ones who put the boards in place, and I was more like a gopher. I carried heavy boxes of laminate into the room, pulled out pieces, mixing them from 3 to 4 boxes and laid them out for the guys. I also handed them tools, sharpened pencils, pencils and more pencils, pressed on the board edges to help them slide together, and just tried to be of good use. J and C did a lot of kneeling, while I did a lot of standing and carrying. I don't think it mattered, because we were all sore!

Finishing up in the living room.

These two worked really hard!

We finally made it into the hallway!

Living room windows - BEFORE

Living room windows - AFTER

Living room looking towards the kitchen - BEFORE

Living room looking towards the kitchen - AFTER

Hallway progress.

This is as far as we could get done on the hallway Sunday. What you can't see behind me (where I was taking the picture), is the grouping of boards that had to be cut and trimmed to follow the angle of the "corner".



It is still hard to see the angular corner, but this may give you an idea. This part alone probably took around 1, to 2 hours. Crazy, I know! That was mostly because of the measuring, trimming, placing the boards, and a few errors, but at least we got the most difficult area done. The rest should be mostly straight pieces, with a few trimmed areas.

C doesn't know if he can come by to finish the hallway tonight (Monday). He has some studying to do for his work (pharm sales), and that's okay. Maybe it will give us a day to rest and recuperate a bit.

We are still waiting for the transition pieces to come in anyway. Once the floors are complete, we will go back to add quarter-round along the walls, and the pieces that make a smooth transition from one room in laminate to another in tile.

Have a great day everyone! I know that I am! It has been great getting look to my right and see this beautiful new floor while I work. It really adds rich color.