Finally!

A perfect world is one free of carpeting. I don't like the way it feels on my bare feet. A medium shag (which is what I have/had) makes me think of all the sweaty feet that have walked across that 20+ year old piece of carpet. Yes, I said 20+ years. I'm sorry, but carpet just should not last that long. Despite what my parents would have you believe, that beige sculptured shag was put in in November 1988, just before I came home for Thanksgiving break from my freshman year at Snow College. Ick. And in the 6 years we have been here, we have lived with the intention of replacing it at our earliest opportunity and have made little to no effort to keep it clean. Double Ick. Don't even get me started on the carpet and linoleum that are original to the house, constructed in 1971. I'm working on it, OK? And we are down to just 2 bedrooms and the laundry room that are in that category.




I finally got the money saved up and set aside for the new flooring, (after having to spend the saved money on a new freezer, save it again only to have to spend it on new tires, and save it again) and we got it laid this week. A former co-worker of mine told me that Sam's Club was the cheapest place to get it, and she and her husband had laid it themselves and it wasn't that hard. If they could do it, why couldn't we?




Famous last words. First of all, we (Lane, my dad, and I) were all rookies at this job. The first problem we discovered was that we didn't have the proper tool for cutting out the bottoms of the door jams for the flooring to slide under. Off to Home Depot Lane went to buy the necessary tool (not really a bad thing, since there are few things Lane enjoys more than a new power tool). Naturally, once he got it home and went to cut the first door jam, he dropped the tool (a Dremel) on the floor, breaking the blade. Back to Home Depot Lane went to buy a new blade.




So my dad set to work cutting all the door jams, Lane cut the floor pieces and I snapped them into place. Even with all 3 of us working, the whole project took a lot longer than we had anticipated. I expected that all the pieces would just have to be snapped into place with the tongue and groove on the one side, not realizing that there was tongue and groove on 2 sides so after it was snapped in place, it still had to be banged into the groove on the other edge.






We worked all Wednesday and got the room about 2/3 done. Our knees hurt. We ran out of flooring, so we went back to Sams on Thursday to get 2 more boxes. We worked all Thursday and got the rest of the flooring done. Our knees were red and swollen and it brought tears to our eyes every time we had to kneel, even with a towel or pillow underneath. Friday we had to do the baseboard, trim and T-mouldings in the doorways. We got the whole thing finished up on Friday night at about 7:00. Our knees, I'm convinced, were bloody stumps begging for relief.


As the 5 of us stood around admiring the beautiful new floor, we all commented how it looked like all the walls had moved out about a foot. The whole room seemed bigger, but we figured once we got all the furniture back in place it would look more normal. Nope. The room still seems bigger. Substantiall bigger. And somehow my giant couch got smaller.

This is the hallway between the family room and the kitchen. The laundry room will be the next room to be done. Unless the other car needs new tires, or the fridge goes out, or any of the other things that will prevent me from saving up the money.

Things we have learned:

1) When starting a new project such as this, start with a small, square-ish room. DON'T pick the largest area of the house, especially if it includes lots of obtstacles such as 4 doorways and a fireplace.

2) Don't rely on the math you learned at Pleasant Grove High School to calculate the square footage. If that's the only math you know, add at least 2 boxes to make up for your mathmatical deficiencies.

3) Buy knee pads. I know you think you are still somewhat young and tough. YOU AREN'T. You are old and broken-down, and $10 for knee pads is a small price to pay.

4) Anticipate that if you need 8 lengths of Monterrey Maple quarter round, Home Depot will only have 7. And if you think that the other Home Depot in American Fork will have more, you will be wrong.

5) If your husband shouts that he hates the floor and wants a divorce, he really doesn't. He just needs more power tools.