After an incident where one of our subs marred the floor pretty badly (We won't name any names, but it was the electrician), we decided to put protective plastic on the floors to cut down on the damage to the floors since we still had the movers coming and various other contractors. This was several weeks ago.

This plastic you can buy at Lowe's in the flooring department. It comes in 100' lengths and has a sticky back on it to adhere to the floor. When you lay it down, enormous amounts of air gets trapped underneath and form "bubbles". The longer you walk on the plastic the more it gets pressed down and in turn the more it compresses the air in the "bubbles". Cats hate walking on plastic, so Moscow was generally not fond of what we had done and as it progressed we became increasingly less fond of it too. You see, these compressed air bubbles became something like little sonic land-mines, with an explosive sound not unlike bubble-wrap (the BIG bubble-wrap). Not even the stealthiest of ninjas could have traversed our floors without a snap-crackle-pop. The pinnacle of the absurdity of the situation occurred one night while laying in bed, we heard a loud snap! We both about died laughing while we were imagining the look of disgust on Moscow's face as he walked across the floor snapping one of the loudest bubbles yet.

Well, kitten is happy now, because this weekend we pulled up the plastic. When the plastic came up in the bedroom, he had a solid two hours of frisky-time. Unfortunately, this was when we were going to bed, so I had to remove his bell collar so we could get some sleep.

Since the plastic has come up, we have purchased cute little baby blue booties for any future contractors to cover their boots with. I can see it now... "You want me to wear wut?

Tags: Floors, Contractors, Kitten, Plastic

  I took half a day off yesterday to lay tile in the downstairs bathroom. All-in-all it went pretty smooth except...
   
    A few years ago I laid white hex tile in the bathroom of our other bungalow, and subsequently had about 5 square feet left over. So when I measured the square footage for this this bathroom I assumed that I wouldn’t need any overage since I had those leftover tiles. Well, in about the last 3 sq ft I ran out and began to use the leftover tiles. Apparently there are different versions of 1” white hex tiles, because they were NOT the same, even though they had been purchased from the same source 3 years ago.
  
    Ugh, so today Kristin is driving to M&M Tile up in Tontitown to purchase 3 sq ft of tile to finish the bathroom. Meanwhile I’ll go ahead and start the grout so that we can get the claw foot tub installed this week.

Tags: Floors

Before.

After.

This weekend was a huge weekend. We got our hardwood floors installed and our doors hung. Since then I’ve been driving myself crazy with the floors, being overly careful not to wear work shoes on them and obsessing about every little imperfection. I’m still not sure if one little spot was from a manufacturing defect or from where the door was installed.
    The other little spot was my fault, I dropped a piece of door hardware on the floor and it made a 1/4” dent in the wood. I’ve been just sick about it. Fortunately, it will be under the dining room table, but sill, I will always know it’s there.
    We’re getting close. Today I’ll be taking half a day off from work to lay the tile in the bathroom. Kristin will be picking up her sister and her sister’s husband from the airport. I made double sure that he has plenty of plumbing supplies and, oh I dunno, maybe a couple extra paint rollers. You know, just in case.
    Also, thanks to all our friends and family who donated wood flooring to us through the link on this website. The floors look fantastic!

Tags: Floors, Before & After