Lessons Learned
The project was to turn 4 rooms (2 of those are kind of 1 giant room) plus a small hallway from similar to the below (old, very warn carpet) to the second picture.
Family took off Wednesday to be out of the way. Seemed reasonable enough–basically a room a day.
Yeah, right.
First there’s moving remaining furniture out. Then the carpet removal. Then the padding removal. Then, because whoever installed the carpet must have been on some caffeine or other high and went absolutely crazy with the staples, staple removal. In that first room, it was horrendous. Then the carpeting tack strip removal. Then cleanup. And then time for some of the flooring stuff with the underlayment. And then finally the flooring. Trips to Home Depot and Lumber Liquidators as well were mixed in among there. I actually managed to get a lot of the things I needed for this project from Home Depot. Plus, I even got a chance to use a coupon code when I ordered a few extra things online afterwards. Home Depot often have some special coupon codes that can be used when shopping online. Moreover if you would like to check out all the latest Home Depot coupons for yourself, you can go to this site.
This was not an easy project by any means though. So, yeah…things did not go according to plan in a lot of ways. Wednesday through Friday were busy work days, despite rescheduling some things for this coming week. Then there were issues, some of which will be corrected later. But here’s what I learned:
1. Furniture should be completely out. Unfortunately, we don’t have space to completely remove everything from all the rooms.
2. There’s never enough research. I’d read some things before I started to prepare for it, but it was still not enough. Different tools, different methods of doing things, different tips and tricks…*
3. Mistakes will happen. Hopefully the mistakes will be in bad cuts on wood, not on safety.
4. Fatigue is a killer. I tried to do too much too fast, and ended up having to take 2 of the evenings off just to re-energize. Some of that it making sure to eat well, and some just pacing the work.
5. There’s some disappointment with the work–it is not perfect. I hate that. But many of the issues I’ve now figured out how to take care of later (see #2 above). Overall, though, it looks pretty good.
*Some info isn’t all that good, so be careful. Ran across an article on eHow.com that discussed leaving the spacers in between the flooring and wall, which kinda defeats the entire purpose of having spacers.
The project was to turn 4 rooms (2 of those are kind of 1 giant room) plus a small hallway from similar to the below (old, very warn carpet) to the second picture. Family took off Wednesday to be out of the way. Seemed reasonable enough–basically a room a day. Yeah, right. First there’s moving…
Don't be a perfectionist. 🙂 And when it's done you'll be super proud of yourself. YOU did it yourself!!!
perfect is just not gonna happen for us mere mortals – but what you got going on there Scott is some darn spiffy new flooring – looks great!