Last time we went upstairs, the floor was ready for us to commence. And last night, Mrs. Fetched and I did just that, laying down two boxes worth.Amazingly enough, Daughter Dearest didn’t see fit to come up and help us out in any possible way… I just can’t imagine her not wanting to make sure it got finished as quickly as possible.
Naturally, we have a few angles and corners, and that’s where the circular saw comes in. We had to slice about half an inch off the side of the board in that protruding corner in front of the closet door. I’m not really looking forward to the gable part; with our luck, we’ll have to slice off both sides. But if we can average two boxes a night, we should have it done in about a week.
UPDATE: I came home last night to find that Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest had been busy through the day. It’s almost halfway done now!
FARfetched,
ReplyDeleteIt looks BEAUTIFUL! Just gorgeous.
It almost makes me brave enough to try it.
You've done this before, though, haven't you?
Is that the "fake" hardwood stuff (for the life of me, I can't remember the name, and I'm too lazy to google right now)?
ReplyDeleteMy parents live in a mobile home, and decided to expand by adding a room on the front. Then, they turned what used to be the living room into a dining room - and mom wanted the Pergo (??) flooring. Guess who got drafted to drive all the way home and spend a week laying the floor? By himself.
It was easy to put down, but it was a bitch at the same time. We kept having problems with it shifting (the walls in trailers are not very good, and the floor kept slipping into the cracks between the wall board and the subfloor).
But I got it done. And it, surprisingly, looks really good (except for the crappy baseboard work).
To this day, I'm protective over that floor. I worked too hard to see it scratched to damaged by uncaring children.
Hi guys!
ReplyDeleteTnanks, KB… I have to agree. ;-) Yes, we've done the hallway before. A larger room is both easier & harder: more to lay down, not as much cutting (until you hit odd corners).
Jeff, the flooring is actually a bamboo laminate. And I can relate about the trailer stuff: I've lived in one, and the rooms in FAR Manor aren't exactly square either. Nailing down the flooring along the wall would have helped with the shifting issues; we have to do that every once in a while here too.
Solar:
ReplyDeleteLooks good, bamboo is really becoming a good renewable material. Did you pull the baseboards? That makes it much easier and looks so much better.
I have a laminate floor which requires no nailing. The Pro is it's easy to install and costs about $1 per foot. The Con is it's not a durable as wood or bamboo and if you spill a glass of water and don't wipe it up RIGHT away you'll get warping.
Wow Far, I need to get over here more often and follow the narrative! (Sorry about that!) I'm only about half-way through your ordeal, but that was quite the project. I'm glad you at least treated yourself to a new cycle before you undertook all this, otherwise, I don't know how you'd have managed it all with such aplomb.
ReplyDeleteKnow what you mean about nothing being square though... our house is 105 yrs old now and we're looking at eventually putting in new hardwood downstairs ... we are definitely going to have to hire our friend to do that!
Hi FARfetched.
ReplyDeleteThe floor is looking good. My sister and b-i-l put down wood flooring in their living room. But their son and d-i-l are really good at doing things around the house like that, so they did it.
Hope this passes fast and you get a little slack time in there.
Hey everyone. Mucho progress; if the ladies of the house do as much this afternoon as I think they will, we could have it done tomorrow or even tonight. I'll post more pix tonight in between trips to the table saw.
ReplyDeleteYup, Solar-bro, we pulled the baseboards first thing. Is that laminate what you had down when I was there? It does look good. Have you trained your pals to wipe up their spilled beer yet?
IVG, we're getting into the fun phase, where I have to feed strips to the table saw. I'll post a picture of the gable tonight; it's pretty easy to see where the not-quite-right angles have added up. Off-angles aren't a killer, given a table saw and a little care, but you want to make sure your floor is mostly level.
FM, this is definitely not-slackerly of me, for sure. But tomorrow, I plan to treat myself to a nice afternoon cycle ride. We're going to do one more room — Mrs. Fetched's office — but her room is small, has no angles, and the floor can be jacked up from underneath if necessary.
I can't wait to see the new pictures. You've almost got me convinced to try it. Mister's pretending that we never talked about it though. Do you think he's just being smart?
ReplyDelete(since I've got no idea what username is going to be displayed)
-katiebird
Hi KB — I'm posting a shot of the (completed) gable area now. We'll have to get one more bucket of glue to finish this thing up.
ReplyDeleteAbout your name: funny, the first one is "katiebird" and the second is "catherine." How did you do that? ;-)
ReplyDeleteIf you want to try doing it, start with a small area — an entry foyer would be ideal (because they usually have only one door and no extra corners. I'll email you with some other things to watch for.