Floored

 

After Christmas, I caught a common cold and after a typical week of symptoms, thought I was about through with it. But then I either caught something else or just haven't been able to shake an unproductive cough for nearly a month. I'm not alone according to news reports but that brings little comfort. Fortunately other than a cough which I can treat with various medicines and remedies, it has had little other symptoms to go along with it. I have felt fine other than when I work up a head of steam and then stop, a coughing attack usually goes along with it.

Thus the flooring of our downstairs "family room" took a lot longer than I had hoped. Partly due to the ailment but also in large part that I really had no place for the furniture and so had to shift it this way and that as I tore up the existing floor and installed the new flooring. I'm still not done as there are a few trim pieces and a threshold that I need to fasten down with an industrial glue, including one piece attached to the bottom of the sliding aluminum patio doors in the background (behind curtains). The glue needs relative warmth to cure and right now, the aluminum is icy cold. So I will wait to do all the gluing in one go so I don't have to buy multiple caulking tubes of the stuff, when it is a bit warmer.

This constitutes a large milestone in my home remodeling project because this was the last room I had not fully remodeled (with a few caveats below). I had repainted it and installed the wood stove insert in the background, but never replaced the flooring which looked hideous the day we bought the place over 11 years ago for reasons mentioned in my previous post. Achieving this goal doesn't mean I am done though. The storage room on the other side of the wall from the stairs, has never been anything but concrete walls and wood studs. Other than a functioning laundry and a place for our deep freeze, canning jars and utility mechanisms, it is mostly a catch all room for those items like luggage or camping gear that only are used now and then. Someday, I would like to spruce up the corner around our canning jars and old chest deep freeze. There are also the stairs above with remnants of the same carpeting that was throughout the house when we bought it. I want to strip off the carpeting and do something different there that is more attractive and easier to clean. Also, two of the upstairs bedrooms still have old carpeting but in fair shape so hasn't been replaced yet.

Below is a picture of the old engineered laminate flooring. It doesn't look bad in the photo but was in fairly rough shape. Still, I figured if I gave it away for free, someone might take it for a hobby room floor where the appearance isn't as critical as the ability to clean it. The fellow who got the first half of it last year when I redid the mother-in-law suite got first dibs, as he requested, but after a week of no response, I just posted it on Marketplace. I expect after dozens of canned requests of "Is it still available?" and my judicious weeding of a dozen posts asking if I'll deliver it or hold it for the next paycheck after the second Thursday of next month type requests, someone will finally show up and it will be gone in a few days. A hassle, but not in the landfill which is my only other alternative.

[I finally got around to posting it and despite my saying in the ad that if you are reading this, it is still available so don't ask me that question, I had 50 people reply and of those 41 started off by asking if it was still available. After refusing to hold it for the third Thursday after next or for a relative that lived in another state and supposedly was willing to drive the following day to pick it up, someone who lived in town swung by and picked it up. They have two boys who are around 6 or 7 years of age who apparently were rough on flooring and so this was to be their new flooring in their bedroom. I may have sore fingers from so many DMs and a headache from dealing with stupid questions, but that pile didn't end up in the landfill.]