Day 5-ish (of 3) of the Laminate Flooring Install

IT'S DONE!!!

Yes, you read that right...we're finished with the floor!

Mike will probably regale you with pictures and witty anecdotes later... here comes the stuff for the boring people like me!

We took the night off last night because it was just too stinking hot and by the time it cooled off a bit, it was too late to run the saw. We got up today and just kicked it out and got it done in about 2 hours. You know, bay windows and nifty wall structure look really neat, but it's a pain in the ass to cut around for flooring!

We're not putting any molding up yet because we still have to tear down the walls. We have no idea what thickness the walls are currently and what they'll be after putting up drywall so we don't know if the flooring is close enough to the wall to not show after that's done and molding is up. We've decided that if it's not close enough, we'll get a darker color and do a wide border around the outside to butt up against the new wall thickness and then put the molding up.

We also realized that we have no idea what kind of molding we want, whether we want it stained or painted, simple or ornate, or whatever. One thing we have decided is that we aren't painting the downstairs whatsoever until we are ready to finish it off. It's the last thing that we'll tackle before we move to upstairs.

I know that after this entire project, both Mike and I feel a lot more comfortable with the house and our ability to actually succeed in fixing this house on our own. I know that I'll be able to work on and fix the floors upstairs with no problems and Mike is feeling a lot more confident about the electrical work.

We've made some changes in plans for what needs to be accomplished before the rainy season. We're going to run new electrical under the house to the places that currently have the knob and tube. We are going to brace up the section under the house that we are going to put the walls on in the living room including new cement footers. We are going to seal up around the chimney stack that is on the house and finally, we're going to make sure all the gutters are clean and the ground has the right grade going towards the house.

We figure that this way, we know that everything under the house is safe and prepared for the on slaught of the rains. The work in the living room itself can be done during the rainy season because other than some cutting, it's all done inside. We're also going to rip out the office walls at the same time since the only thing that needs to be done in there is drywalling, closing up the door to the closet in the room and then opening up a new door to the closet in the hallway.

We are also amost completely in agreement on the layout of the walls and doors for the new living room and dining room since we're opening up the wall between it and the kitchen. We've also decided that we're going to set it up as close to the Victorian layout as possible with doorways and portiers entering the public areas and actual doors to the private areas (i.e. kitchen and office). We'll see how well we can pull this off when we start to put up the walls. I'm thinking this will take us through the end of the year. I don't want it to and I think that we can get it done in a month's time, but I know the old saying of twice as long as I think it'll be...most times though, it's three to four times.

posted by Unknown @ Saturday, July 22, 2006