Flooring

Right from the get-go of getting my own place, I knew I wanted to change the carpet to hardwood floors. Hardwood is just easier to clean, maintains better over time, and let's be honest, it looks a lot classier.

However, since I'm a poor poor homeowner, I couldn't afford to pay a contractor $2-3k to do the job. Well that and, let's face it, I wouldn't be able to get a smug sense of self-satisfaction if I did. So that being the case, I decided to do the job myself.

No sweat, right? Um... yeah.... *koff*

First some reference pictures of what it looked like before:


2 rooms + a closet = easy right?

Day 1

So the first thing I had to do was rip out all the old carpet and foam padding.

All I can say is that it was a good thing I am a little, um... minimalist... in terms of furniture, because with all the moving around, this step alone took my mom and I nearly a day!

And yes, that is the same plant in both pictures. I am not a money tree aficionado or something.

Step 2 is to clear the floor of all debris. Concrete seems to generate an UNLIMITED amount of dust. Every time I swept/vacuumed there seemed to be just as much dust left over. That pretty much constituted day 1.

Day 2

Dad and I headed downtown to tackle the next part. Before laying down any boards, we rolled out some cork underlay. This part was, thankfully, quite easy (except for some weird cuts for the walk-in closet.


We also got some lunch-time entertainment from a visitor that day on top of St. Mike's Hospital.

This pic was taken from my window!

After laying out all the cork, it was finally time to start putting down floor boards. The box claimed that the boards featured "easy, snap-together construction." Well the boards certainly snap together... but easily? I can definitively say that that is some embelishing by the marketing department.

We only managed to finish this much by the end of Day 2. = \


Day 3

The start of Day 3 wasn't going so well either, but over time I developed a pretty good technique involving a block of wood, a hammer, and plenty of curse words my parents' didn't seem to realize I knew. In any case, things progressed much faster as the days went on, and we even managed to work quite economically without wasting almost any boards.

The twins (fraternal of course), set up shop in my closet.

The results of Day 3 were MUCH more encouraging.


Day 4

Day 4 was really just buckling down and getting to work using techniques developed on Day 3. However, if there's one thing I was pretty happy with, it was our ability to get the joints under the door frames just right.


It would've been very easy to cop-out and go for an easier solution here (which would've left a somewhat unsightly gap that I've seen in some other places), but we decided to take our time and do it right and I think it looks pretty good.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but my bedroom was floored in one.


Now all that remains is moving the twins out of my walk-in closet, flooring in there, and then the monumental task of cleaning up!