(Mis)Adventures in home improvement, part 1 continued: the floors, days 2 and 3
Kimmer
and a half <g> - I got up bright and early to get back home before the
workers got there. Turns out the girls didn't sleep too well, either,
mostly because Sarah kept kicking Caitlin, so they were awake and ready
to go when I was, for a change. We got home and opened up the house. I
have never seen this place so empty, with nothing on the floors. I
just had to see if this would work, so I went into the family room,
waited until everything was still, then snapped my fingers loudly; it
did echo <g>
Anyway, I got the girls set up with the TV in my bedroom, then set up my
laptop so I could get that work done. Turns out that my transcribed
wasn't dead, just slightly shocked, and I was able to get my work done
and sent out. Then I went out to the garage and started setting things
up to paint the baseboards. I decided to just do it on the side of the
house rather than bring things into the backyard, since they were gonna
be stored in the garage when they were done. I laid out the paper
dropcloths procured the previous night and was laying down some pieces
of 4x4 we had in the garage when the workers showed up. They were kind
enough to move the stacks of baseboards out of the garage before
starting with the floor. The girls insisted on helping with the
painting, which made it take a bit longer than if I had just done the
whole thing myself, but that's okay. It kept Sarah occupied for a bit,
and she really was helpful when moving the boards. She has the
attention span of a 7-year-old, because she is one, and got tired of it
after painting a few so I sent her inside and stayed out to do the rest.
Getting all 16 lengths painted, two coats, took most of the day, but I
was able to relax and get some knitting done between coats <g>
While I was doing this, the guys were inside laying the floor. I was
told to expect about 300 to 400 square feet to be put down in a day, and
we were dealing with close to 900 square feet, so I figured possibly 3
days to get the floor down. Fortunately, none of the areas was a
strange shape - all rectangles and right angles - and it went really
quickly. By the time they stopped for lunch they had finished with the
family room - 340 square feet itself - and closet and had started on the
entryway and living room. After lunch 3 more workers showed up, and
they got the entire job done in one day. They packed up and left around
4. We were able to stay inside last night, albeit without some of the
comforts of home, namely stereo and satellite TV in the family room, but
we survived somehow (although Ryan's not too sure about that) <g>.
This morning I was up bright and early again, to get work typed and sent
out. I had a bit of time to get the computer put away and relax a bit
before the workers got here to do the baseboards. The color turned out
better than I thought, too. The work went fairly quickly; it's amazing
what having the right tools and knowing what to do will do <g> They got
the boards in with only a couple questions (like there's a gap in the
top in one point that probably won't be visible once all the furniture
is back in place anyway, but they had to mention it to me), then had
to deal with the doorways between the hall and bedrooms. Two went
without a hitch and look really good. The third was a bit of a problem.
We have a patch just inside the master bedroom where the cats have
picked at over the years, and it's pretty much shredded. It's also in a
bad spot with regard to the edging tape. Where they had to cut was
gonna take away most of the edging tape, which means the carpet would
come out in little bits. It was decided to just have them do the best
they could with it; we know what we have here and will live with the
consequences. Then they moved in the heavy pieces of furniture, I paid
for it (gulp, but I get a 2% rebate on the credit card that gets
deposited to a 529 college savings account, and that comes in mighty
handy when fees are due), and everything was done around 2:30.
I still have some serious wall washing to do because I want the
furniture in different places, and there are marks on the walls from
where the old stuff was. I also need to go around with paint and a
small brush and touch up the spots that got dinged when the boards were
moved and stuff, but that won't take long at all. It's starting to look
like a new house inside :-)
Now to recover from this one before even contemplating the kitchen
makeover that's next <g>
Lady Kimmer
Castle Troll Watcher
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