Downstairs Flooring Project, day 3

Or: The Real Victims In This Whole Mess

Above: Murphy and Denali check out the door. Again.

One problem with this project, and it's a problem we do run into with home improvement projects, is that the cats need to stay out of it. Now, we've tried blocking off the downstairs. Access to the downstairs is tough to block off, though. Being a split level house, the living room is bordered by a wrought iron railing surrounding the foyer. We've wrapped the whole thing in giant pieces of cardboard but they still wriggle underneath and jump the six feet down or, even scarier, jump over onto the stairs. The lower floor is currently pretty dusty and dirty, so we wanted to keep them out of it. We set them up in our bedroom and attached bathroom with their water fountain, a litter box, and their food bowls.

That was Saturday. They're pretty annoyed at this point (Monday evening), to say the least. They haven't stepped foot outside the bedroom since Saturday morning. It's now to the point where Murphy, the more (what's a nice way to put it?) outgoing cat, the one who thinks he's a dog, has started teaching nice, quiet, sweet Denali all his tricks. She's now taken to jumping onto the stuff-covered dresser at 4:00 in the morning, mewling, or walking across my nightstand and knocking things over, sticking her rear in my face. It was tough enough with one doing it every night, now she's doing it too.

We're about to the point of being done with demolition, though, so we might be able to clean up down there and let them out soon – provided we're not waiting on water shield drying or some such business. In the past we've locked them up for painting, but paint's dry in a few hours so it's not so bad.

Long story short, I'm expecting to be eaten in my sleep some time soon. If you don't hear from me within a couple of days, call the MSPCH.

Downstairs Flooring Project, day 2

Playing a little catch-up here as I didn't actually start blogging yesterday as I'd planned.

Yesterday they pulled up all the existing carpet, scraped the old pad off, and started on adhesive removal. We also had some excitement: I took a look at the original estimate for the job and realized I'd ordered 40 square yards of carpet instead of 50. Good times! Off we went to Green Depot to find out exactly how much carpet we'd had delivered on Friday and to bring Ray back a sample so he could see what he could do with joining or sewing. It also turned out that we had to order the water shield we plan to use, as they didn't have any in stock. It's a veneer-like product that goes straight on the concrete to prevent moisture seeping up to the carpet from the slab.

At this point, we're overnighting the water shield to get it here on Tuesday. Once we have official word on the length of carpet we can find out how much more we need to order and put a rush order on that, as well. Ray initially figured they could get the entire job done in the first weekend and following weeknights, but at this point it looks like we're going to end up pushing to the following weekend regardless.

Here are some photo updates.

Above: The hallway, now sans carpet!

Above: The main room, plus some buffing machines

Above: The fireplace side and impromptu tool bench

Above: Out the back, plus some attempt at adhesive removal

I realized I hadn't talked much about our flooring choices. I'll try and do some of that in tomorrow's or Tuesday's update, as there'll be a lull in work. See you then!

np: Alkaline Trio - Dethbed

Downstairs Flooring Project, day 1

If you know us, you know that we've been talking about renovating the downstairs since before we even made an offer on this house. It's a split level, built in 1974, and I think that was when it was last decorated. When we moved in it was all dark wood paneling with a red carpet. The sliders were duct-taped shut with heavy red velour curtains, shielding the previous owner from the dazzling sunlight while working away in his office–what at the time looked a little more like a burrow.

Fast forward a year and a half! Living entirely on the upper floor, we sanded the paneling down over the course of about six months, primed the walls, and months later settled on carpet, tile for the hallway, and, last but not least, paint. We went ahead and painted in the space of a weekend (though we've yet to remove the mile of painter's tape) and finally scheduled the flooring to be done starting this weekend and happening nights during the week to wrap up next weekend.

It's the first time we've had someone else come in to work on the house, though, and it's a reasonably major project, so I figured I'd blog the progress similar to our friends Jack and Anne's recent kitchen overhaul. Not as many moving parts as there, so it won't be a fraction of the excitement, but I wanted to have before- and after-photos and here's a good place for them to land.

Here's the morning work started. We weren't sure when Ray would be showing up, or if he'd come at all on Saturday (details were left loose due to vacation schedules) but sure enough, he surprised us in our pajamas at 10:00 Saturday morning.

Above: The hallway, with carpet

Above: The main room, with carpet

Above: The fireplace side, with carpet. Isn't it lovely?

Above: Ray and his assistant hard at work. Note that this carpet
was actually put down over another thinner utility carpet.

Yeah, you heard me correctly.

Stay tuned for more; exciting times ahead.