More on the floor

As New Years day dawned we headed back for another day of fun hard work.  Day two was pretty much a continuation of the second half of day one.  Select a row of boards, put them all together, pull out the ones that have problems and circle the problem with a Sharpie.  Rinse and repeat.  This was easily the most satisfying part of the job because we had everything pretty well figured out and were into the easiest part of the job.

Looking into the room

We reached this point knowing that the easy work was done.  From here on in we would be dealing with all of the tricky bits.  We went ahead and started on the hallway to the bathroom area seen above to the left.

Hallway done, looking at the greatest challenge in the project.

For anyone who has never done a floor this is the greatest challenge due to what you can't quite see above.  Just beyond this wall is a closet.  Recall that we have been working from right to left.  The implication of this is that we will need to work from the back of the closet outward but we must end up at exactly the same point as the hallway otherwise the boards that span both sections won't fit.  We had dealt with this before when we did the Pergo floor in out current house.  In that case it took two tries to get it to work out and even then the only way I was able to get it to lock in place was to pull the entire floor outward a slight amount.  This floor is a lot less forgiving and due to the placement of walls involved there will be no pulling the floor outward in this case.  Either get it exactly right or it will be a mess.What we did was temporarily install one board along the last line and then snapped a chalk line parallel with the board.  If you look closely about you will actually see two lines, our first was't parallel which was worrisome since this has just about zero margin for error.  Next step was to measure from the back of the closet outward to the line, then calculate what the back piece would need to be ripped to.  Below you can see Ray testing our measurements using scrap pieces.

Lets hope this works!

The above picture was taken at 11:12 PM, it was time to go home.

On Day 3 Gloria and Ray worked on some general cleanup and the closet when you first enter the bedroom.   Not sure where I was during this part but Ray found a rather interesting surprise when preparing to lay the floor.  There was a pipe sticking out of the wall that had been hacked off at an angle.  I guess they figured it would be buried by the carpet and far enough out of the way that nobody would ever notice.  Anyway I guess they were right for about 45 years!

Nobody will ever notice this!

After removing the baseboard so Ray could cut it off

Not exactly fine craftsmanship.  This isn't the only thing we have noticed in this room.  The room was added on to the house in the very late 60's on top of the garage.  I can only imagine that this was some sort of electrical conduit that was rerouted.

After the small closet came time for the big closets which would ultimately lead to us finding out if our measurements were correct.

In general these are a lot of work even when you don't have the precision issue looming overhead.  When you come up to door trim you have to undercut the trim so that the flooring will slide under it.  This is because you won't be able to cover it with a quarter round molding latter on.  Also when the floor has to slide under something it isn't possible to click lock in it place.  This requires taking a chisel and cutting the edge of the locking piece off of the board before so that the final board can be slid in place.  Glue is used to hold it there since the clink lock is gone.

Closet done

At this point we have the closet done.  Note the short wall above that the floor appears to flow under.  It doesn't of course this was achieved with the undercutting, chiseling, fitting and gluing mentioned before.  This is why our measurements the night before were so critical.  There will be no moving this floor, even 1 mm. Either it fits or it is time to cry.  The next row of floor will tell the tale.  At this point I was a nervous wreck.  I don't think Gloria truely understood the ramifications of this since this was her first floor job.  I know Ray understood.  I kept eyeballing it and all I could tell was that we were close.  

 YAHTZEE!

Yes, the board clicked right into place,  Amazing!  At this point it was about 7:00 PM.  There was a bit of discussion.  Ray wanted to push on and finish the job.  I estimated that there was about five hours of work left and both Gloria and I were hungry and exhausted.  Ray was worried about the timing because he had to get back to Nashville the next day.  Finally we convinced him that we should quit for now and come back first thing tomorrow and finish up.

Day four did see an earlier start than usual but my prediction of five hours of work was way low.  With all three of us working it took closer to nine or ten hours.  Lots of fitting, chiseling, gluing, etc.  Somewhere along the way Ray slipped with the chisel.  He grabbed his finger and Gloria let out a blood curling scream. Turns out his chisel is quite sharp.  Sliced the end of the finger right through the nail.  Ouch.  A little time out to bandage his finger and for the most part for the rest of the job he became an adviser rather than a doer.  In years past i would have just jumped in to do the fitting but my knees have gotten so bad that is is very difficult for me to get down on the floor and work.  Luckily Gloria had been well trained by now and she basically finished the job with me cutting boards and Ray pointing out what to do.  You may remember the video I mentioned at the beginning of the the last post.  Yes we had managed to follow the instructions right up to and including ending up with a bandaged finger.

No final pictures were taken because the instant we were done it was time to race home and try to help Ray get ready to head back to Nashville.  Interesting think happened when we got home.  Denver was playing the Steelers in the playoffs.  We knew that they were loosing and that Payton Manning had started the game on the bench for the first time in his long career.  Ray gets a text from David saying something to the effect that the one armed bandit is warming up on the sideline.  David is convinced that Peyton has no strength left in his arm after the nerve damage several years ago from his neck injury.  We turned on the TV just in time to see him come in to the game.  Somehow his presence changed the dynamic of the whole team and in the end Denver won the game sending them on the the AFC championship game with Peyton back as the starting QB.  It was very exciting and meant that Ray would be very late getting home.

The next day Roger went over and took some pictures of the finished job.  I will close with a few of them:

Time for a new floor

With the carpet gone and the first coat of paint done it was time to think about putting in a floor.  We knew we didn't want carpet again.  Original plan was to use a Pergo Laminate Floor.  They don't look bad, they are very tough and easier to install.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are easy because I know that all of them are a lot of work and will be a bit fiddly in places.  Ray was still home for his Christmas break and up for the challenge so we began searching for a floor.  As we thought more about it it became clear that with the refinished pine floors in the upstairs that a fake wood floor would never look quite right.  We ended up deciding on a Oak engineered floor.  These are similar to the laminate but utilize actual wood for the top, bottom and middle layers with some sort of other material between them.

Step one was to buy the materials.  We found that a Home Depot in Southport had a good supply of some that we liked so off we went to buy them.  I calculated that we would probably need 15 cases each of which weighs about 40 pounds.  The actual boards are about 4 inches wide and random lengths.  This is what makes this harder than laminate which goes in in sections 9 inches wide and every piece is the same length.

After getting them home and carried up to the room we carefully measured the width of the room.  It is important to plan the boards so that you don't end up with having to cut the final row too thin.  We decided that we would need to rip the first row to about 2 3/4" to get everything to work right.

Thursday morning Ray and I began by sitting around drinking coffee and thinking about getting started.  We knew that we needed to rip the first row of boards and were pretty sure we knew the rest of the steps but it never hurts to watch a few more youtube videos while you work up finally getting started.  One of the videos covered the exact Millstead floor we were installing.  In it a man showed all of the tricks for fitting it around doorways and such.  Inexplicably at the end of the video we noticed that his finger was all bandaged up.  No mention of what had happened.  Not bringing back five of the boards the night before to rip on the table saw was an obvious tactical error.  Gloria was already frustrated with our pace and headed over to do some cleaning.  Somewhere along the way we told her to bring five back so we could trim them.  After a bit more procrastination on our part she arrives back.  She mentions that it was hard fitting five of them in the back of her car and a lot of work to lug down the stairs.  OOPS, she had brought back five BOXES rather than 5 boards.  Shame on us for not being more clear.  Time to get off our butts and get started.  Ray and Gloria went over to get started while I ripped the boards on the table saw.  The original plan had been to use a circular saw to cut the end boards but the more I thought about it the more clear it was that the table saw would be a lot easier.  So I managed to load it in the Lincoln and headed over.

There are hundreds of how-to's on installing these floors so I won't bother to provide a detailed description but in general it is a floating floor that has a layer of foam put down first.  The boards are installed with a 3/8" gap to the walls so that when if expands and contracts it can move around just enough to keep it from buckling.  Each row need to be planned out to be sure that no two rows have boards that line up.  Enough explanations let's see some pictures.

 The floor must be completely clean with no rocks, nails or staples to cause problems latter on.

 Gloria holding down the first row of foam

First row of foam stapled down. 

First several rows installed.

The boards snap together but it isn't quite as simple as that.  Basically it involved lining them up at a 45 degree angle and them pounding it down with a rubber mallet.  Occasionally we would find a slight imperfection along the edge that prohibited it from locking in place.  Lots of trial and error and occasionally we would determine that the problem wasn't so much with the board we were installing but the one one the previous row.  The only solution when that occurs is to remove the current row and the previous row until you get to the bad board which then needs to be replaced.  All in all it made for a slow process.

 Ray and Gloria contemplating something, probably that they are going to have to tear out a few rows to fix another bad one :( 

End of day one!

By the time we quit it was after 9:00 PM on New Years Eve.  We were exhausted and starving.  We felt like going out for a good Mexican dinner.  Unfortunately most of the authentic restaurants were closed for New Years Eve.  We did find an El Rodeo (small chain of Mexican restaurants famous for money laundering) in Carmel that was open.  We had dinner, got home and all three of us were in Bed before 11.  What a way to spend New Years Eve.  Gloria and I slept well but Ray didn't end up with such a restful night.  At midnight people started shooting off fireworks which caused Mindy our typically fearless Doberman to freak out and start crying at his door.  He ended up having to let her sleep with him but she couldn't settle down until about 2:00.    

Happy New Year (a bit late)

I must say that I have not been keeping up with the blog all that well of late.  We have been working a lot but at times it doesn't seem that we make much progress.  On New Years day I proclaimed to the family that I had a New Years Resolution!

This will be the year we move to the Homestead

Will we succeed?  Hard to say, we still have a lot of work to finish not to mention that our regular home isn't exactly in "move in condition" as far as selling it.

So what have we accomplished?  Lots of continued sorting of stuff in closets, shelves, etc.  Lots of cleaning. These are the activities that I primarily rely on Gloria for.  She has more patience for it than I do.

One day in early December I was in a meeting when she texted me with this:

Nasty Carpet up!

This is from the master bedroom which was added on to the house in about 1968.  She tore all of the carpet out and hauled it out of the room by herself.

With that great start as well as all the work she had done moving the furniture out (mostly by herself) this room became our next target.  We had already been trying to see what we could do with the vanity area and the bathroom.  

A day or two latter she again texted me while I was at work with the update that she had picked out a color for the paint and was busy painting.  Here are the results from day 1:

I think the interesting shirt was one she found there!

The next day she made progress on some of the closet space and other areas of the room.  After that there wasn't a lot of progress until after Christmas.  Stay tuned!