Tag: Laminate Flooring

I Knew, But…

I was wary of putting any piece of finishing off my room on hold, knowing it might be hard to get back the motivation and drive to finish, but I thought I’d still be able to pull it off. It is proving WAY harder than I anticipated.

It probably doesn’t help that I have so many things I still need and want to do that aren’t yet another endless piece to working on my room. It also doesn’t help that one of the things that needs to get finished off are these stupid transition pieces on the floor and they are proving to be just as big of a pain in the ass as almost every other single thing I’ve done in the space.

When I went to attach my first one I realized that it doesn’t actually work well with our floor as our floor is too tall. I never expected that. Because of that, it doesn’t snap into the piece that you bolt to the floor. I’m now having to try and get creative and find another way to make it work. I’m definitely going to have a love hate relationship with this flooring by the time it is all said and done.

I did manage to get the final wonky floor piece cut and installed. It was in a weird place around a door frame. The first one I did was off and I ended up with a small gap in an awkward place that wouldn’t get covered by trim, so I had to do it differently. I’d put it off and avoided it like crazy, but I couldn’t avoid it as it had to be done before the transitions. Shockingly, it went in pretty easily. Maybe it was all the rest of the flooring mess I had to deal with since I first attempted that piece that made it easier?

I didn’t do much more today than figure out the transitions were going to be a nightmare and cut that final floor piece. I just didn’t have the energy or motivation to start anything else. I really do need to finish those transitions before I can finish my doors and drawers because I need to move all the rest of my tools up to the garage for that and I can’t do that until those pieces are in.

Hopefully, I’m just in a mood today and tomorrow will be better.

Craft Room Project: Extended Floor Finished

You know I couldn’t stick with a plan. My life just doesn’t work that way.

Again, I rearranged my priorities and the things that needed to get done to fit those priorities. The cats getting access to the basement is still a priority, but the things I needed to get done for that to happen have changed up a little.

I realized that the mess of cutting the flooring was not something I wanted to attempt if the cats could get into the basement because that would end in disaster. That meant I had to finish the floor into the other room. Hubby very generously gave me his last vacation day and the two of us spent 12 hours getting that room done.

Flooring Done: View From Craft Studio
Flooring Done: View From Craft Studio

Originally, the floor stopped just at the wall between the two rooms. Now the second room is done. All that is left for the floor is to install the transition pieces where the floor stops and there won’t be trim or anything else for it to butt up against.

Flooring Done 2nd Room
Flooring Done 2nd Room

Even this, though, required a bit of a plan change. When we were cleaning the space to prep for installing, we realized that the floor dipped too much around the sump pump pit and that the pit came out of the recessed area into the room more than we realized so we couldn’t just go against that wall on that side (left side of the first image). We talked about several things as a fix to the issue, but I finally decided that I’m just going to build some low bookshelves that would sit in front of the concrete walls and would end at the floor edge.

The goal is that we don’t want to have to hire anyone else to come in and build more walls. We hadn’t intended to fully finish the rest of the basement, but do a sort of semi-finish that we could do on our own. The bookshelf solution allows us to keep to that plan. We may need someone to build the closet around the sump pit area, but that is all we want done.

Now that the floor is down in both rooms, the bulk of the mess is finally done. There are some things that will be messy, but a lot of that is going to shift to the garage. I have some painting I need to do on the rest of the trim pieces and boards I need to work with. I’ll be putting plastic down on this new floor to protect it so I can do that in all that open space.

Once the paint is done, it will leave putting the stair trim up and trimming out the upper door. I think that is the point I need to be to let the cats back down. There are still a lot of things left to do to finish off my room, but I’m pretty sure that most of that can be done if the cats are down there. Maybe.

I have to get to that point before I can work on MCG’s room, which is my next step. We will be helping her move in at the end of the month, so I’m on a deadline to get her space ready.

Sadly, I cannot shut my silly brain up. I keep coming up with ideas for all of these spaces and each new idea is that much more work. This is becoming the never ending project. At this rate, I just might get lucky to get into my room to actually work on something other than building it by Christmas.

If I’m lucky.

Craft Room Project: Finally! Floor!

Considering I really thought at one point I’d be able to do the floors first, this has taken 6 months to come about. I’m utterly exhausted and every single muscle molecule hurts, but I have a gorgeous floor.

I’m going to celebrate by doing absolutely nothing for the next day or two in an effort to give my poor old body a much needed break. Even after that, I may not get back to my room until next week after our visit with MCG and her family.

Seeing the cabinets and then the counters go in felt wonderful, but seeing the floor finished? I’m ready to move in and get started working on projects. I’m not quite there yet, but I am definitely on the down hill slope of this project.

Floor Installed: Closet & Stairs Area
Floor Installed: Closet & Stairs Area