***I've been working on this post for over a week and it still ain't done. This is Part One.***
This post is not meant to teach anyone how to do anything. The intended purpose of this post was to share how we (Boots and me) (well, mostly Boots) put our floor down- step by step, a visual demonstration through pictures, if you will.
Step One (Or maybe step 13, because first we had to decide which room(s) to put the flooring in, go look at it 7 times and argue back and forth over which one, then buy it, bring it home, let it set......blah blah blah, et cetera adnauseum) : Clean out the room!
Like so. (That's spilled dry cat food in the floor, nothing dusgusting besides the murder stains)
Cut the carpet into more manageable sections......
And carry it out!
Ew, padding!
Cut the padding and fold it up.
Scrape up the padding that's stuck to the slab.
Admire the nasty dirt that you've been walking on for how long?
Pull up the carpet tacks by using an industrial strength floor scraper......
Or use an air chisel apparatus. (We Boots learned that this is much! easier than pulling up the nails with a clawhammer like we did in all the other rooms, plus it doesn't pull up as much concrete.)
Sweep all this crap into an out of focus pile.
When we first started this bedroom remodel over a year ago, we got kinda stupid and pulled up all the baseboards and threw them out like idiots, so now we have to replace them.
We had to go pretty high with the new baseboards because our stupidity ripped the paper on the wall pretty high. Be careful when you're starting out on home improvements, but realize that you are going to mess something up.
Sometimes it can't be helped.
See? Just high enough to cover up our mistake.
Boots is pretty good at cutting the corners of these baseboards, but they'll still need some puttying to make them look perfectly seamless before painting.
You have to start in the corner of the room. As I've previously stated, figuring out which corner to start in can take some time. It all depends on how your boards lock together.
In this case, Boots started at the door so he could join our bedroom to the hall.
Here he is tapping in the board that was specifically cut to fit around the door frame. To end any possible confusion, he's checking to make sure it fits in this picture. He's going to pull it back up and then put it back down again, we'll get to that, you'll see.
And yes, you have to lay in the floor like this to get just the right angle on the rubber hammer.
More tapping.
This is a loud project. Don't babysit infants or bring home a migraine when this is going on.
Toes are for holding down boards too, ya know!
When you're ready to begin again, roll out the pad.
Cut it to fit the length of the room.
Maybe you'll need to place a scrap in the crack so everything is copacetic.
Peel off the sticky strip.
And fold the flappy plastic over to secure the two (or three) pieces together.
Tap, tap, tap!
Over and over again!
Yay! The doorway is complete!
Pretty good, right?
