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: