Finally....Chaos: Starting to Lay Flooring

It has been two weeks since we brought our wood flooring home for installation.

The flooring does hace to sit for at least 72 hours, but ours has acclimated for much longer. That's good--I suppose, but it was NOT planned that way. We planned to start laying floor last weekend. But you know how it is--Sh...tuff happens!

We had N. to get home from camp and N. to send off to Illinois. We had the water softener blow a gasket (actually an 'O'-ring seal) and start leaking all over the garage...

So on Friday, we'd said, we'd begin. On Friday, we went about measuring because before you can begin, you have to PLAN. And Bruce is a planner extraordinaire.
And that planning is important so that the boards are centered in the room, and so that any "ripped" (sawed longwise) boards aren't so narrow as to look funny at the edge of a room.
I am really glad Bruce knows about these things, because I...being engineeringly challenged...had no idea how much goes into getting ready for laying a floor.


Then, we had some more supplies to get.
Friday evening, before we began our Shabbat, Bruce spent some time on the phone with Lumber Liquidators. We found out we needed a different trowel than the one we used on the composite flooring we installed at the other house. We also needed solvent to clean off any misplaced Bostik Adhesive.


After Torah study yesterday, we went to get those items. We also needed the MSDS (Materials Safety Data Sheets) print-outs, so that we knew how to safely handle the adhesive and the solvents. Then we stopped to get gloves, knee pads and blue painter's tape.

After Havdalah, I emptied the china cabinet, and we moved the furniture out of the dining room--the first room we plan to do. Except---the china cabinet! It is too heavy for Bruce and me to move alone--we need more muscle. So we are working around that until we can get some help. I saw my kitchen become crowded and my dining room emptied.
Bruce disconnected the stove from the stove-pipe because the platform it rests on must be moved, too.

This morning--well, we did not get an early start. I should hide the newspaper! I kept walking out to the kitchen and saying, "Bruce, should we get started?" And he kept saying, "Just let me finish this section."

Maybe I'll cancel the paper for the duration!

But we finally got moving. More measuring, more calculating. Some heated discussion about where to actually start and which way to orient the boards.
Our hallways are orthogonal (at-right-angles-to) the large rooms.

But finally--action! The baseboards came off. More measuring was done to make really, truly sure we would not glue ourselves into an off-center look.

Then the carpets started coming up. We are now committed to trying to actually, really, truly get this done...before the High Holidays, I hope!

I find that as I age--and believe me DIY ages me FAST--I am less and less willing to tolerate chaos for long periods of time. And I am mindful of how long it took to get the tub in! That "weekend project" actually took close to three months. (Holidays and a Bar Mitzvah intervened).

But I have to keep tellling myself that:
1) I was the one that wanted hardwood floors
2) We are saving thousands of dollars by laying the floors ourselves
3) The value of our house will go up by about double the materials cost plus the estimated installation (the part we are not going to pay!), making our installation real sweat equity
4) My husband is a perfectionist--meaning the work will be done beautifully
AND
5) I will enjoy the fruits of our labor for far longer than I will have to live in Chaos.

So--bring on tohu v'bohu (chaos), because the joy of DIY cannot be far behind.