Not Totally Lost

I had to meet a friend from work this morning so we could work on our storyboard which is due next week.  Don't ask me, "what is a storyboard?"  Trust me, you don't want to know.   Anyway, I was really bummed about losing the entire day, or even part of the day, to anything but my floor.  I am DYING to get it done.   I think on more than one occasion today I said to myself, "I just want my house back!"  Oh well, it will come soon enough.  I got home a little after 4 PM today and set to work.  I knew I needed to be at a stopping point by 6:30 since I was having dinner at 7PM with my dear friend Kristen.  Amazingly enough, the work went quickly and before I knew it, I had it completed except for the long pieces that will need to be cut up against the baseboards.  I am so excited.  My plan is to get that part done on Monday in between mowing my desperate grass and going to a class at work.  I'll keep you posted!

In The Home Stretch

I got SO MUCH done today.  I only have a few more rows before the master bedroom will be completed.  This floor has gone down so much easier than the living room and hallway.  It looks like I am going to need to order another box or two to finish into the closet but that can wait.  Here are a few pics from today.

I'm Pretty Sure I Only Cussed Once

I stayed up late last night trying to stay on schedule with the master bedroom.  I think I finally hit the sack around 2AM.  This morning, I got up early to tie up some loose ends.

While I was painting the trim, I noticed several places where you could see the old paint color through the new paint color.  I marked these areas with painter's tape so I could come back to them later.  By the time I was finished, I easily had 75 areas to fix.  Those would have to come later.

So.. the trim!  It was late and I was feeling grumpy and just wanted to get it finished quickly.  I started getting sloppy with my paint.  At one point, I dripped paint all over the wall.  The "F-bomb" came out and it was at this point that I decided I would finish the trim and then take myself to bed.

This morning, I fixed all the exposed green paint and then touched up the trim.  It's amazing to me how different the room looks with trim that not only is CLEAN but also not so stark white.  I used "Fresh Cotton" by Valspar.  It's a perfect color... just a little bit warm but not beigy.

This afternoon, I opened the windows and started to tackle the floor.  I placed all the underlayment (except for the closet) and even got started on a few rows.  I think it's going to look amazing.

I LOVE Demolition

This is me in full haz-mat gear

Since I decided to give up on the living room for the time being, I thought getting started on the master bedroom would be a good idea.  I moved out all of the furniture (including the couch).  I'm now sleeping in the office.... with my mattress and box spring on the floor.

I pulled up the carpet....

Notice the dust in the picture?  That's not on my camera lens... it's in the air!  Now you know why I wear a N-95 mask!

The floor is clean and ready to be patched (there is a sizable crater in the middle of the floor).  I'm hoping to get a good bit of painting done today.

And as a side note, I finally have furniture in my living room!  Well, it's only a chair but I did get the television hooked up again so I could watch football today.

Walking Away

Well, I'm having some fits of rage related to the quarter round so I'm going to walk away from it for a while and move on to a new project.  You see, apparently carbonized bamboo is REALLY hard.  I tried using a nail gun to nail it in place but the wood BENT several of the nails and messed up the finish of the wood.  I then tried to drill pilot holes and hand nail the wood.  That did fine until I tried to sink the nails and again, I messed up the finish of the wood.  The nice man at Lowe's told me to try glue...still no good.  It would have worked if my walls were actually straight!  I even called an installer and it was going to cost me more for him to install it than if I just bought new quarter round.  So, I'm walking away from that part of the project for a while.  I had a breakdown over it yesterday and then again today.  It's just not worth getting emotional over.  I decided to start working on my bedroom instead.  I finally moved the couch out of my room (hallelujah!) and I'm in the process of evacuating the rest of the furniture (I'm writing this post while eating lunch... PBJ makes everything better).  I'm hoping to get the carpet pulled up today and tape off the trim.  I'll paint tomorrow while watching football then maybe I can start the floor by Monday.  This room is fairly square and there aren't as many doors so I'm hoping it will go quickly (deep breath.....).

1/4

I finished laying the hardwood today.  I had to get a bit "creative" with the last two boards but, thankfully, my imagination was in my corner and the floor looks great.  I had a video to upload but I think it's too big.

This is the mitre saw I borrowed.  What a life saver.  I can't imagine where I would be if I were still making manual cuts.  

I hate linoleum

When I remodeled my bathroom, I had to pull up all the linoleum and scrape the concrete in order to remove all the adhesive. This job SUCKED!  It was backbreaking and took several days to complete.

Today, I started pulling up the Pergo in the kitchen and, much to my dismay, I found linoleum.  YUCK!  I don't know if I am going to have to work on all the adhesive again or if I can just put my underlayment over the adhesive.  I'm guessing that I'll have to remove the adhesive.  Grrrr!

My new tool

I had such a hard time cutting my floors to fit around the door jamb in the hallway that I gave in and bought a jamb saw.  It worked so well.  I used it on the coat closet in the foyer and now I won't have to make so many crazy cuts to get the pieces to fit right.

I'm also really close to totally changing my mind about the kitchen.  I really think I might like to have brick floors instead of hardwood.  I could use the extra hardwood in the master bedroom.. the rooms are about the same size.  Who knows?  I seems to change my mind about alot of things multiple times in a day.  LOL!

UGGGGG.....!!!!

Today was a really bad day for DIY.  It took me almost 5 hours to properly cut a board so that it would fit under the door casing.  I will not include pictures but suffice it to say, that dang closet is FINISHED!  Now on to the rest of the hallway.

I'm Exhausted!

I've been working hard on my floors for the past three days.  My back aches and my knees are bruised (I tried knee pads but wearing them was more uncomfortable than going without).  I've completed the foyer, about 3/4 of the living room, and now I'm contemplating the hallway.  I'm kinda stuck with the first of FIVE doors I'll have to conquer in the hallway.  It all involves some crazy cuts I'll have to make and I just didn't have the brainpower at 6:30 PM yesterday to tackle it.  I have four days of work ahead of me so I'll have to ponder it again on Monday.

Ahhh.... feels good to have at least STARTED to lay my floors.  It took me about 10 boards to finally get the hang of it.  After that, it went fairly quickly.  I'm hoping to knock out a good part of it tomorrow and Wednesday.

Y'all!  I finally finished painting.  I did all my work while listening to the GA game today.  Maybe that was my motivation.

I also started laying my underlayment.  I got two rolls down and taped.  That means I'm ahead of schedule. YEAH!

STILL.PAINTING.TRIM!
(All the base boards are complete)

But at least I cut my grass today.