Day 3 (Wednesday)

Emmet was over in the morning and we spent about 6 hours removing staples from the floor. Apparently whoever secured the subfloor to the older floor thought the more staples the better, and it took us forever to get all the staples out. Under the stove, I counted over 100 staples! (Seriously, where did they think this floor was going?) I ended up getting fencing pliers (a farmer's tool, in case you can't tell) which made the job go much faster for me (Emmet wasn't enough of a farmer to master the farmer's tool - he stuck with the pry bar, hammer, and pliers). Farmer's tool or no, I was glad to be finally done with all of those blasted staples (and now I have the farmer's fencing pliers next time I need to do any fencing).

Emmet also somehow got behind the stove, turned off the gas, and disconnected the stove so we could move that into the living room and out of the way for the new floor.

Nick, Jen, and Sarah and Donal came for dinner and post dinner flooring. We put down the underlayment and started on the laminate flooring.

Installing the laminate isn't a quick or simple task, especially when working around cabinets, stove piping, doorways, and more... but thanks to Nick's floor expertise (he put in a similar floor with his dad last year) and Donal and Leslie's expert cutting skillz, we did get a good start.

Tonight we'll go round two and hopefully run into less snags than we had last night. In the meantime, the part of the new floor that is in is AWESOME, love it! Can't wait for the rest to be done...

Floors upon floors

Day 2 - Woke up and left the house by 8:15 to get to Lowes for some magical linoleum removal tool. Found the tool and arrived home minutes after my brother Emmet showed up to help. We scraped more linoleum... the tool didn't really work so well, the floor was glued too much... But Emmet and I scraped for one...

two...



three hours...


We made some good progress before I had to jump in the shower and meet some friends for a late lunch. And Em had to go home and get ready for his real job. By the time I had a late and long lunch with some friends, and stopped for coffee, and made it home it was 5 pm. I did some putzy stuff and then the homie got home and we started the evening's tasks... As I was ripping out linoleum, and then started soaking the adhesive off (and realizing how awful scraping all the adhesive off was gonna be), I realized the edges of the subfloor were in really bad shape. Dang it. I then considered the floor is too high and maybe if I pull up the subfloor I'll find the plywood, which I can lay the laminate right on top of.

So I started ripping up the subfloor... and found more linoleum (which answers why the basement stairs look the way they do).


Naturally this complicated things... involved some google searching, a call to my dad, a call to Nick (to find out What Would Ralph Do - Nick's dad Ralph is a home improvement genius married to a very detail oriented woman- if Ralph does it, he does it right). The new plan: Rip up the subfloor and install the laminate over the old linoleum (Ralph did it!). So Leslie and I spent the evening ripping up subfloor... moving the refrigerator, and ripping up more floor. Sadly we didn't know how bad the subfloor was before all the linoleum removal, but I was glad we figured it out then and not later (once we'd finished all of the top layer of linoleum all the way).

The only real hitch was the stove- I think in order to shut off the gas, I have to stand on my head behind the stove to turn off the valve and disconnect it... and considering my vertigo, I don't think that's gonna work, I'm waiting for Emmet tomorrow. We'll move the stove and remove all those staples in the floor, clear some work space, and then Nick and Jen are coming to get me started on laying the laminate flooring tomorrow evening.

Easter Break

Day one of break is over... recovery was underway... I slept, I drank coffee, I sat down to eat lunch on the patio, it was an amazingly slow morning / early afternoon. And then I ran some errands, scoped out the habitat for humanity restore (but it didn't have what I wanted), went to Lowes and bought the new flooring for the kitchen, managed to fit it into my Honda Accord, and made it home exhausted. Had dinner, played some ball, gloried in the gorgeous spring...



And then (the music gets dramatic)... the homie and I started the kitchen floor removal. I was hoping against hope it would be simple- remove the quarter round trim and roll up the hideous floor. But it was not so... it went more like this:

1. Run to Aco to get pry bar while homie moves things off the floor. I love Aco. And that it is only a mile from my house.
2. Remove quarter round trim- fast and easy
3. 8 pm. Begin removing linoleum... learn that it is all glued, and by glued I mean well glued to the floor... Pour wine...


9 pm: third friend joined us. She was by far faster than both of us... and jumped right in to visit and help... (and refused to have photographs taken). Refill wine glasses. Continue chipping away horrid linoleum...

10 pm: Still going... pull out band-aids and apply to growing blisters. Crack jokes about this awesome floor. Keep chipping away...

11 pm: Quitting time. Still a little over half a floor to go... hmmm. Maybe I should revise my goals for the week... and schedule more recovery time...

But no worries, Maggie spent a lot of time licking the exposed adhesive clean. I'm sure that's a good sign... (Please God, let old linoleum shavings settle better than fresh wabbit did...)

Easter Break

So... after working over 80 hours last week with prep for a week off in the office, then all the Triduum set up, take down, liturgies, Living Stations of the Cross, etc., I get this week off (thank God!)

The Plan:
Naturally I have dozens of projects I want to tackle, but I am trying to limit myself so it's relatively achievable. I have three goals:

1. Recover
2. Paint the kitchen cabinet doors (and reinstall)
3. Replace the kitchen floor

Today has been recovery day. I slept in late (and the cold I started getting over the weekend seems to be clearing up as of a full night's sleep). Then I drank some coffee, checked email, facebook, chatted with an overseas friend, and finally got up to drink more coffee. Ate lunch on the patio sitting down and enjoying the beautiful spring day-- started contemplating yard projects that need to happen. Discarded thoughts of yard work and started my to do list for the week. And now it's 2:30 pm and I haven't accomplished anything except some recovery. And some researching cabinet spray painting techniques. And drinking some coffee. And just doing a lot of nothing- which is truly glorious after the last few weeks. Moving on to list making and trying to dig out floor measurements so I remember how much flooring to buy.

My plan is to run some errands this afternoon, pull out my paint supplies, and get ready for the actual painting... stay tuned...

Happy Spring! (again and again and again)

Eeek... the forsythia is blooming today... and the crocuses are pretty well done and the Chionodoxa (yes, I had to look up the name) are blooming. And the daffodils. And the hyacinths (note to self: plant more daffodils and hyacinths, you need more of them around). Happy Spring!!


And now before bed, I need to sew a couple sashes for tomorrow's Living Stations of the Cross.

Happy Triduum.

Guess what we did today?

Oh yeah! I pulled out the old bike and we took it for a spin!!! It was sooo great to be out in the warm weather (expecting mid-seventies this afternoon), having some time this morning (after working a lot this week and will be working around the clock all weekend). Anyway, great way to start a very busy day. Here's some of us, happy as can be after a nice fast two mile ride (and yes, I'm grinning the same way and drooling from the other side of the camera)...


Have I mentioned how much I LOVE spring???