Flooring Prep

Justin and I had a good stress-out Sunday and Monday due to the fact that our progress didn't measure up to our expectations and we have a looming deadline. See, the floor refinisher is starting on Thursday this week and we have to have the floors prepped enough for them to get going. Because the flooring guys are going to need to have exclusive occupancy of the house once they start the sanding and refinishing until they're done means we won't be making progress on other stuff like tile or trim until they're out of there. So, Sunday and Monday were all about the kitchen floor, specifically removing that ugly sheet vinyl. It comes off slow, stinky and sticky with a 1000 degree heat gun so that is the tool with which we equipped ourselves. Jon came by on Monday with a heat gun of his own to help out and we knocked out 3/4 of the job and tested our smoke detection system. Jon's gun lost its smoke towards the end of the evening so we were back to a one-woman effort. The good news is that Justin wrapped up the remaining 1/4 of the job on Tuesday night while I was off at my volunteer job.

Here's the floor with about 1/3 of the vinyl removed on Sunday afternoon. On Sunday we did a hodge-podge of stuff including laying tile, wrapping up painting, and stripping floors. Super-friend Jill came by to help out and wrapped up the painting and pulled all of the tape and plastic down so now we have a fully painted house. There's still some touch up to do in nearly every room but it is good enough for now. Jill and I cut up the hex tile to fit the bathroom floor and laid in a simple blue border after contemplating many more complicated patterns. While Justin started laying the hex floor, I started stripping the vinyl and Jill painted. But, Justin was having an off day (off week it is turning out) and got frustrated with the hex pattern about halfway through so we switched jobs and I finished up the tiling. It turned out pretty nice, although there are a few spots that I wish had turned out differently. And my back and knees were the worse for wear.

Here's the floor sans grout. If you look closely, you can see the numbers I wrote on the tiles to remember where the pieces went (the hexes are sold in big sheets so you don't lay each tile individually).

And finally, the electricians have come and gone and outfitted our recepticles with real switches and outlets and trimmed out all of our lighting. So, the ceilings and walls are really getting that "finished" look. There's lots more to tell but I'll save it until I have some photos.