...there must be a "during". And I think they call it that because you have to en-"dure" it.
Laminate floor construction schedule:
3 weeks ago: we took out the first pieces of carpet.
2 weeks ago: we realized that we would have to remove all the vinyl in the kitchen and started doing that.
1 week ago: we started laying floorboards, hoping it would be a weekend project.
We planned to start on Friday night, but those plans got waylaid for reasons that I seem to have forgotten in the past week. I know there were legitimate reasons, though! Saturday we didn't get started until about 1:oo pm, about 3 hours later than we hoped.
The flooring book I bought said to plan 5-6 hours for an 8'x10' room. I thought that estimate seemed high. Nope, it was pretty much right on. We got three rows laid and realized that in order to cut around the first vent, we would need a jigsaw, not a tablesaw. We didn't want to buy yet another power tool (yes, we bought a tablesaw just for this project), so we borrowed one from our bishop. Only the battery was dead. It took an hour to charge the battery. Between the time it took to go to the bishop's and borrow the battery, wait for it to charge, and then feed the hungry children, we wasted almost two hours.
But by 11:00 pm Saturday night, we had THIS to show for our efforts! Yeah, 10 hours for the easy part. So, I thought, I could work on the entry and dining room during the week and we'd do the kitchen (the hard part) this weekend.
But as of tonight, it still looks pretty much like THIS:
Laminate floor construction schedule:
3 weeks ago: we took out the first pieces of carpet.
2 weeks ago: we realized that we would have to remove all the vinyl in the kitchen and started doing that.
1 week ago: we started laying floorboards, hoping it would be a weekend project.
We planned to start on Friday night, but those plans got waylaid for reasons that I seem to have forgotten in the past week. I know there were legitimate reasons, though! Saturday we didn't get started until about 1:oo pm, about 3 hours later than we hoped.
The flooring book I bought said to plan 5-6 hours for an 8'x10' room. I thought that estimate seemed high. Nope, it was pretty much right on. We got three rows laid and realized that in order to cut around the first vent, we would need a jigsaw, not a tablesaw. We didn't want to buy yet another power tool (yes, we bought a tablesaw just for this project), so we borrowed one from our bishop. Only the battery was dead. It took an hour to charge the battery. Between the time it took to go to the bishop's and borrow the battery, wait for it to charge, and then feed the hungry children, we wasted almost two hours.
But by 11:00 pm Saturday night, we had THIS to show for our efforts! Yeah, 10 hours for the easy part. So, I thought, I could work on the entry and dining room during the week and we'd do the kitchen (the hard part) this weekend.
But as of tonight, it still looks pretty much like THIS:Now, we did work on the floor three nights this week. I promise! Two of those nights we got maybe one row laid. On at least one of those nights our plans were not supposed to involve yet another trip to Home Depot to buy a wood chisel and adhesive. (Did I mention that we've been to Home Depot at least 7-8 times in the past two weeks and should own stock in the place?) See, it's deceptive advertising when they tell you that laminate flooring is so easy to install because all you have to do is lock it into place. That is true--unless you have to fit the piece of flooring under a doorjamb or into some other very tight space. Then, you have to chisel off all the nifty locking parts and very carefully glue the pieces into place. The gluing part is easy, the chiseling part, not so much. Oh, and you'd better hope you cut right, or else your pieces going into that closet might just not fit. And did I mention that you also have to saw off the bottoms of the door jambs to fit the floor underneath?
And so, this little spot right here, including the inside of the closet, took us about 4 hours to complete. Yep, that little tiny spot.
And so, this little spot right here, including the inside of the closet, took us about 4 hours to complete. Yep, that little tiny spot.Still to do: finish the dining room, finish the kitchen (a bear because we'll have to move all the appliances), buy molding to go under the cabinets (because nobody told us we'd need that), put trim on the steps, paint all the baseboards, paint all the walls (because you might as well do when the baseboards are off), and put the baseboards back on.
And I told James last night that I've hit my personal wall when it comes to being able to tolerate the house being torn apart. Two weeks of walking on the wood subfloor in your kitchen is about a week too much!
Oh, I should also mention that doing remodeling projects when you have children is pretty much crazy.
Comments