Work Weekends: May 2005

Intro

Dave put down some nice tiles on his outdoor patio a few months ago and needed them grouted. Also, he bought some nice inside doors and needed them routed. And trimmed, painted, and hung.

8:30 am

Here's the floor ...

Here's the traditional Chic-fil-a breakfast, including Dave's wife Britny.

Here's the doors ...

Here's Dave's Mustang, lovingly protected from flying specks of white paint.

Dave gets things started by hosing off the patio to remove dirt and leaves that had accumulated in the cracks over the months.

Dave then mixes up a batch of grout.

Steven and Daniel start grouting ...

... and Dave applies coat #1 to the doors using Steven's handy paint sprayer.

11:00 am

While the paint dries on the doors, Dave starts wiping off excess grout from the tiles.

1:00 pm

Lunch break! Britny presents us with quite a spread from the new grill. We've got hamburgers, sausage, hotdogs, shrimp, potato salad, and Doritos (Now Better Tasting!)

2:00 pm

Lunch is done and Dave applies coat #2 to the doors.

While the paint dries on the doors, we start preparing the frames inside the house. Here we see Dave multitasking: with one hand, he removes the old hardware from the door; with his other hand, he holds a phone and tries to explain to a BellSouth phone representative that he is happy with his $15 month Vonage IP phone bill and has no intention of switching services. Under the circumstances, Dave was very polite.

Dave's friend Walker stopped by to help. That's him in the back.

Walker walking.

Each door had to be custom fitted - there was much sawing, planing, and trimming going on.

3:00 pm

The first door goes up in the bathroom. The clever observer will notice that the backs of the doors have not been painted yet.

6:00 pm

The final door was a problem child. It had to be cut so much that the hollow portion was exposed. Not good.

Dave cuts a piece of wood to fill in the hollow portion of the door.

Daniel hammers it home.

7:00 pm

You guessed it...Pizza and Coke!

7:30 pm

With the doors at a stopping point, we revisit the floor. The grout has mostly dried, so we all get down and start scrubbing, much like Cinderella. We did not completely finish either project, but much progress was made. The floor needs a final cleaning and sealing, and the doors need one more coat of paint and the knobs installed. Perhaps we'll post the final pictures, or maybe you can just use your imagination.

8:30 pm

Clean up and go home.

Intro

Having inherited gross carpeting from previous homeowners (and contributing a few gross stains of his own), Steven decides to install laminate flooring in his hall, family room, and living room.

Early May

The flooring is shipped, and Steven and Dave pick it up from the warehouse and load it into the living room. Steven opens one package just to make sure he got the right color.

Steven goes to Home Depot to buy some last minute items and spots this awesome old couple with bright red pants.

The hall, with Steven's daughter wondering what in the world is going on.

The family room with a circa 1978 linoleum patch leading to the garage.

The family room with another linoleum patch leading to the kitchen. I wonder if back in 1978, some woman stood and admired that curvy gold strip while her friends told her how lucky she was to have a house like this.

The family room leading into the hallway. Notice the cool stain from an unfortunate stumble over an opened can of red paint.

8:00 am - Preparation

Steven and wife Kelsi move all family room furniture to the garage. Kelsi vaccums and Steven prepares the cooler (very important step).

8:30 am - The Crew Arrives

It is important to feed your crew lots of carbs and fat.

Dave enjoys a Chic-fil-a chicken biscuit.

Steven also enjoys a Chic-fil-a chicken biscuit.

Yep, you guessed it. Daniel enjoys a Chic-fil-a chicken biscuit.

8:45 am - Get to Work!

Everybody rips up carpet, which turns out to be quite cathartic. I recommend it as cheap therapy. Daniel starts removing carpet nails and strips while Steven and Dave go to work on the linoleum with wonderbars.

We quickly realize that the wonder bars are not doing the job, so Dave produces this wonderful tool.

But even that tool turns out to be a bit cumbersome, so Dave brings out the belt sander. The linoleum is reduced to little strips. It never stood a chance, really.

10:30 am

With all the carpet ripped up, the floors swept, the linoleum removed, and a plastic moisture barrier taped to the concrete, it was time to lay some laminate strips.

Dave saws off the trim of each threshold to allow room for the laminate strips to slide under.

12:00 pm - 12:30 pm

We begin in the hall. We lay the first row...

...then 30 minutes and 4 rows later we break for lunch.

2:30 pm

The hall is almost done. The transition into the bathroom is tricky, and Dave and Daniel do some heavy math to figure out the proper cuts.

3:30 pm

As you can see, the cuts were perfect and the hall is finished!

Dave enjoys a well-earned beer to celebrate the completed hall.

3:45 pm

Time to start on the family room.

The first few rows of the family room were quite difficult. The flooring just did not want to click together over such a long distance. But we kept working and finally got everything settled.

5:30 pm

Two hours later and we're cooking along. Dave is on power-saw duty while Daniel and Steven lay strip after strip after strip after strip...