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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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It's been four days since I last visited Perpetual Ruminations, and four days since I've done much of anything in WdC. Why? Time, my fellow writers, time. It takes time to read, respond, write, and engage here, just as it takes time to do things in that alternate universe we call life. As you probably know, from my last entry, I got floored. Actually, the dining room got refloored. The person who rented the front apartment before we opened it up to our side and took over the entire house put down carpeting. She does cabin cleaning, and one of her customers ripped out their carpet and pad, replacing it with—I don't know. I do know she took the chunks of carpet and the chunks of pad and put them down in her living room, which is now our dining room. The pieces of carpet were taped together on the backside, and the pad was patched with pieces of pad cut to fit. Over time, the carpet pieces started pulling apart, as well as a lot of the carpet fibers themselves coming out every time we vacuumed; the rug and pad were shot, which is why the original owner replaced it. She also had a little dog that was not house-trained very well, so the pad and carpet had an unpleasant smell, which we could not get out despite the numerous times we shampooed. So, my wife and I decided that we would rip out the old carpet and padding, then replace it with laminate flooring. How hard could it be? Ideally, not hard at all. We measured distances, we planned for doorways, we allotted room for expansion, etc. We started in the left corner and began putting down planks of laminate, and soon discovered that the sheetrock did not go down to the floor where the heat registers were. This meant we had a bigger gap than where there weren't heat registers (hot water heat). It took a bit of rethinking along the registers, but we soon were back to laying planks down, locking them in, and by the end of the day, we had about three-quarters of the room done. The following day, we got an early start, thinking we would be done by early to mid-afternoon. But after a bit we encountered another problem, the hall was not square with the dining room. For that matter, the dining room itself wasn't square. Despite our careful planning, we ended up having to rip some narrow strips to compensate. It took a while to measure, rip, and fit these pieces in, but soon we were back on track, and things were going well again. Going well until we got to the breakfast bar, which, of course, wasn't square. Luckily, it was wide enough to make it easier to rip some laminate to compensate. Here is where an adjustable T-Square would have been nice. As for ripping them at an angle, I could have used a table saw tapering jig to make the cuts, but I didn't have one of them, either. Neither did the local stores, and I didn't want to stop, take a couple of hours to drive, and get them. So we made do with what we had. It worked, but it took a lot more time than if we had the proper tools. A bit of flooring knowledge would have helped out as well; I make no claims of being a carpenter. But, in the end, we persevered. It took a couple of days longer than it should have to get it done, mostly as a result of nothing in the house being square. I'm reminded of Bill Daggett, the sheriff of the town of Big Whiskey, who was building a house that didn't have a square corner in it, from the movie Unforgiven.   |
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