Well, that just about killed me.

Install laminate flooring, they said. It’ll be easy, they said. Just click it together, they said.

Good god.

Perhaps for Stan the Handyman, installing laminate flooring would be a breeze. For me the English teacher and my hubby the graphic designer/drummer, well, that was a different story.

The morning after the bulk of the flooring was put in, I arose at 4 a.m. because my entire body was so sore (especially my back) that it felt that I had malaria. Ok, I will admit that I do not know what it feels like to have malaria . . . but I think it probably feels like that. The constant bending over, measuring, placing, crawling around on my knees and pounding in the boards got to my aging body. Plus, I only had a vague notion of what in the hell I was doing, so there’s that too.

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An adventure in home improvement

I think I have a curse when it comes to tackling home improvement projects.

It never seems to fail: I get a great idea, I get the gumption to tackle the project, and then something goes horribly, horribly wrong. I don’t have the right tools, sometimes. Or, more often, I do not have the brain needed to know what in the hell I am doing.

My husband and I decided to refloor my breezeway area – which for the entire time I’ve lived here has been an ugly brown indoor/outdoor carpet. However, it was durable and stood up to the muck and grime that inevitably got dragged into that area day after day, so I kept it.

We had recently made an effort to turn that area into more usable space. We purchased a small square table from a local furniture store and put it in there. However, the area was also inhabited by my husband’s numerous drum cases. He’s a drummer, hence the cases. And when he plays gigs as often as he does, it is preferable to have the cases in a location where you can just grab and go. Some of that stuff is darn heavy. The breezeway seemed like a great place to put that stuff.

But now we have tired of the brown “turf” carpeting and we wanted something that made the breezeway a place to hang out, if one desired. We went to Menards and picked out some Mohawk laminate plank flooring (Lexington Pine) and loaded up our cart with everything we needed, and we picked a day to get the project started.

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Quartz — it’s not just for countertops

When I was doing the kitchen remodel, I wrote a few posts about how I selected the countertop material: Silestone in the texture of Stellar Night.  I still love my countertop with a passion; the silver sparklies in the black are just beautiful to behold.  Here’s a pic of the countertops just after they were installed (and before I had the ugly tile ripped off the walls):

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Pluggin’ along …

The new room is taking shape.  The contractor finished mudding the walls, and I put an initial coat of primer on them on Saturday so he could touch up any spots.  I suppose I’m learning why people don’t like non-textured walls in their houses: they show every single flaw.  However, I wanted the walls to match the non-textured walls in the kitchen, so my intentions were good. Continue reading “Pluggin’ along …”

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Flooring decision: Made! (finally)

The other night I finally decided on what flooring to put in our kitchen and new dining/miscellaneous room.  I wanted laminate so it would be easy to change out when/if we got sick of it, and I also wanted something that brought a retro flair to the rooms.  For months I’ve been toying with the idea of black-and-white checkerboard flooring, but I kept getting hung up on the fear that my house would look like a diner rather than a cozy kitchen with a retro flair. Continue reading “Flooring decision: Made! (finally)”

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Exploring Flooring

The work on our house is scheduled to begin soon, and I am just about ready to hit the “buy” button on that red cracked ice chrome table over at American Chairs.  Frankly, I’m amazed that I have been able to put off this urge this long.  Had I lived in a larger house, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it, but knowing as I do that my 1953 ranch house didn’t come with tons of space for an extra table, I’ve held off out of necessity rather than want.  I suppose it’s good for me to exercise a little restraint now and then. Continue reading “Exploring Flooring”

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