Sunday, bloody Sunday

Yes, stealing from U2, but it was bloody in a different way for us.

How so?  Glad you asked.  My knuckles, my knees, daughter's finger, hubby's fingers, and son, well, he lucked out.

You see, we were laying flooring - a simple, floating laminate.  LOL - I laugh at simple.

This is what we started with - a dirty, dead insect filled room.  Luckily, the air conditioner was connected 2 days ago, so the room was cool at least.

Looks are deceiving with this beautiful midway shot of the flooring.  Yep, this project with problems from the get go.  DH had to build his table saw, but that was ok because I swept and cleaned the room - which took more than an hour.  Then I laid down the insulated pad that supports the floating laminate.

Well, we started on the longest wall and tried to get through the rows, but it was frustrating and I said bad things to my husband. He did not deserve it and I cried feeling so bad.  We decided to take a break and eat lunch.  Then we decided to start on the shortest wall to give support to the longer stretches - this was the BEST idea yet - could have even been in the instructions.

We had a system for this first halve.  My daughter and I snapped each piece into place, son was the runner and DH cut.  

It worked until we got to the long, narrow part, but we worked through it - lots of precision cuts.  This room is about 300 square feet and it took us about 10 hours.  My back is killing me!  We are all hurting really.

To see what it will look like with the baseboards and quarter round, we set a strip down.  It looks fabulous!  We just could not do those today - no more energy.

This is the room above the garage that we added in the framing stage, but after the contract.  We decided to do the flooring ourselves to save money.  This room will be for guests and boomerang boy from college. 

 

What would we do if we lay another floating floor?

1.  Start on the short wall - hands down best thing.

2. Use MANY 1/4" blocks to keep flooring even and away from wall the required amount.  Believe me, it will be worth it.

3. A pull bar for the last row, so that row can be hammered in, just like the others.

4. Knee pads

5. Oil pencil for marking on pieces for cutting

That is it - very minimal changes really - it gets easier as you go, but the cutting can be tricky and as easy as it is, the piece do not snap together THAT easily.  It really took 2 people for each piece.  My daughter was fabulous at it.

My back is really out now, but DH can put in the baseboards and quarter round by himself - those are a lot easier with his new table saw.

I am so grateful that I had enough foresight to put a meal in the crock pot before we left.  I put carrots, onions, celery and potatoes in the bottom of a crock pot, tossed them in garlic, italian seasonings, turmeric, smoked paprika and thyme, then set a roast on top of them (salt and peppered it), poured beef broth over and let it cook on low all day.  We will all so grateful knowing this fabulous meal was waiting for us and we did not have to cook after the hard day.

We are very proud of how it looks.  Overall - good weekend!