A New Floor

Monroe, NC

No, not it the RV, but in the house.  Our house is 65 years old so there are always surprises whenever you try to do any type of repair or remodeling.  Even putting new blinds on the windows is an adventure.  The wide 4 inch window frames that were soft pine 65 years ago when my Grandfather and one of his brothers-in-law built this house are now the consistency of granite.

And nothing is standard, according to today's standards that is.  The kitchen cabinets for example were simply built in to fit the spaces after the kitchen was completed.  So something like a simple cabinet or counter top replacement using the "standard" sized stuff from Lowe's or Home Depot would require a major overhaul.

So we decided to replace the old carpet that we put in our bedroom when we remodeled years ago with a wood like laminate.  We choose the Quick Step brand and had it installed by a local flooring company.  I know, a lot of people including my brother have a handyman streak in them.  And this type of job is labeled as a "weekend job" by folks that have that talent, but for me I'm not so sure.  And since it is in our bedroom we didn't want to be displaced any longer than a day.

The installer showed up right on time and before long he had ripped out all the existing carpet and had the sub-floor cleaned and ready to install the new pad and laminate planks.

 Speaking of the surprises of an older house, notice that the flooring is not the standard plywood subflooring used these days, but they are actually 3 inch pine planks.  After this discovery (I should have remembered that from when we remodeled 17 years ago,) there was a brief discussion about refinishing that floor instead of using the laminate.

 But see the white plank in the upper center of the picture?  Thats were we placed a spare plank after removing a wall that once existed there when we remodeled.  So realizing that, we kept with the original plan.

By mid-afternoon the job was done.  New laminate flooring that looks remarkably like real oak flooring in the adjoining room.  New quarter round molding the same color as the floor.  All in all, a pretty good job by the installer.

Now to the not so pleasant task of getting all the stuff that we have accumulated placed where it belongs.  Or more importantly, getting rid of some of it!