Tuesday, April 7, 2009

So close, I can taste it

We spent this past weekend doing the most painful thing we have had to do. 
Laying 1,000 square feet of bamboo floors.
We started on Sunday, laying down four rows.  You have to establish a base to work off of.  It should be just a few rows.  We needed to get down four to go around a bump out pillar and make sure that the flooring was straight all the way across.

This had to dry for at lease 24 hours.  We let it sit until the next weekend.  On Friday, we swept and mopped the concrete again and started. 

That was about 8 hours of work.  We had a few spots where the floor was unlevel, so we placed the heavy buckets of glue there to hold it down.  We finished almost everything by Saturday around 10:30 p.m.  After a good 12 hours of back-breaking work! All that we had to do on Sunday was inside the refrigerator cabinet and in the pantry.

We used three rolls of blue tape!  The tape helps hold the boards together while we were working on another area.  Those little guys would slide around and leave tiny gaps, so the tape was helpful.  But a bit of a pain to get up.  OK, the tape wasn't a pain, but my knees were definitely hurting by day 3, so any movement that wasn't laying on a couch was pain!

Here is the kitchen floor, with my beautiful, antiqued cabinets. 

And from the other side.
The dining room.
And this is what it looks like right now. We put down paper for people to walk on.  There won't be very many people in the house besides us (plumber, carpet guy, trim guy to install the front door), but it's nice for us to have too.  I took my shoes off so many times on Sunday!  Walking to and from the garage cutting the baseboards.

It's almost done.  I can just imagine what kinds of meals I can make in my kitchen.  What my couch will look like in the living room!  
This is what is left:
-The grinder pump needs to be finished and turned on. (they were working on this yesterday at 6 when I stopped by the house.  Unless MAJOR catastrophe hits, it will be done today)
-The driveway needs to be poured.  They framed it Friday and promised to come back Monday.  They did not.  I heard they were pouring someone else's foundation, but would be out today.  We'll see.
-Granite in the master bathroom counter tops.  It's been two weeks, and they haven't gotten to ours.  Apparently all the great things we told everyone about them got them too busy and they haven't had time... (Today?  Tomorrow?)
-Plumber needs to install all the fixtures.  This cant be done until grinder pump and counters are in.
-Level the lot. [again] My uncle did it, but the rain washed it all away.  So he will be out next tuesday/wednesday.  (depending on the weather.  These April showers are killing me.)
-Sod.  Of course this is waiting on the grinder pump, driveway, and of course, leveling. We are planning to have it delivered Thursday of next week.
-Install the front door.  He will be there on Wednesday to take care of that.  Can't wait.
Then we can move in.

3 comments:

Sara @ Domestically Challenged said...

Yay! how exciting, and your kitchen looks like a dream! Even I would microwave in it

the undomesticated wife said...

I know it's a lot of work, but look at how awesome it is!

My neighbor is wanting to do a cream paint/glaze treatment on her cabinets, but her husband is hesitant. For some weird reason, he wants to keep the ugly dated-looking wood color. Yuck.

Susan C said...

Kelli, how is your bamboo flooring holding up so far? We're going to be using it throughout our guest house, which is under construction. Kudos to you for doing it yourself.