alleymon We had a busy Memorial Day Weekend this year. We decided to finally tear up the old ratty carpeting downstairs and replace it with a Wood Floor Laminate. Of course I chose to save money and do the work myself. So I got started the weekend before and we went out and purchased the flooring, underlayment and tools to do the job and I got started that Sunday afternoon.
Wow! What a mess the carpet was. I pulled up about 10 feet from the front wall of the living room, just up to the entertainment center. The padding underneath was a terrible mess and after I pulled that up there was a layer of dirt/sand/dust whatever underneath that must have sifted down over the years. Yuck! So I pulled all of that up, rolled up the carpet and padding and took it to the garage. Then I had to pull up the carpet tack strips (Very pointy – Ouch) and pull off the baseboard (if anyone attempts this, make sure to score just above the baseboard with a razor knife to prevent pulling off the paint in ragged strips above the baseboard). Then I scraped off the glue that held down the padding and swept up the area and vacuumed up the remaining dust.
Laying the flooring was surprisingly easy. Just laydown the underlayment and snap the pieces of flooring together and except for the cuts, that’s really all there is to it. It did take quite some time to accomplish and I worked on it Sunday afternoon, Monday after work, then Sunday and Monday Memorial Day to finish up. Furniture had to be moved around accordingly and my Reef Aquarium had to be moved (about a 2 hour undertaking by itself). Now we have a nice new floor and only some baseboard work is left to finish up at my lesiure.
Next is the backyard!!!
Saturday morning I took Branden to see StarWars III: Revenge of the Sith. We both enjoyed it very much and for me it did complete the back story that George Lucas started in Episode I and link the original StarWars to the new series quite well.
The next couple of months will be quite busy with work on the backyard. There is general cleanup, removal of junk and weed abatement. Then removal of the old sprinkler system and installation of new sprinkler pipes. Then concrete work and finally new grass. We hope to get all of that completed by the 4th of July. Wish us luck!