New Kitchen Floor

We arrived late Friday afternoon and decided that we would not install the flooring until Sunday so we could allow the new flooring to acclimate further without all the cabinets and stuff sitting on top.  So we rolled the flooring back up to keep us from walking all over it until we installed it since, unrolled, it took up the whole great room.

After we were able to move through the house, I turned on the main water line and checked the fixes I did to the plumbing last weekend and, praise the Lord, we had no more leaks.  It also seems to have gotten rid of the constant groaning we have been getting from the pipes.  We've always had noisy pipes so we did not realize the increased groaning was caused by a leak.  Now we know to pay more attention to those groans since we had a full weekend of quiet.

We are going to have some work done in the house by our handyman and possibly a tile guy we have been talking to.  The work will need to be done while we are gone during the week.  Since we have already changed the locks once to match the new security screen locks, we did not want to give out keys to our house and then have to change the locks again.  The last time we had Home Depot change the locks, I found a kit that allows me to change up to six locks to the same key.  I was able to change both locks on the front door (deadbolt and door knob) to the new key in the kit and will be able to change them back to our regular key when the work is done.

We met Saturday with our handyman, Bob, to go over some work we want him to do for us.  He is going to replace our front door with one we have already purchased, install the double doors to the den and the hall bathroom door and then move the french doors in our bedroom out about a half inch.  Since there was paneling under the old drywall, the door is not aligned properly with the new drywall to allow us to put trim up correctly. If we do not hear from the tile guy before the Easter weekend, then Bob will be tiling our hall bath and laundry room as well.  He will be able to do both jobs the week after Easter, which will put us in good shape to meet our 4/21 permit inspection date.

Since we were waiting to do the flooring, I decided to spend some more time outside (the weather was beautiful) and pull some weeds and set up our sprinkler systems.  The timer we used in the backyard would not work (it got a little frozen last year) and so we had to get a new one.  That was kind of a good thing as I did not care for the one we had as its start time was based on when you turned it on.  The new one is like the front yard where I can setup the current time and the time I want the water to come on.  The rest of the day was spent leisurely and we had a cookout on the grill for dinner.

New backyard timer.  Same function as the front one, with only one output.

Same front timer we used last year. Seems to have fared better than the backyard unit.

As I made an early morning trip to Home Depot (we had tried the night before since their recording said open 'til 9pm, but the door said 8pm), Laurie started clearing out the kitchen.  We moved the last few items together, after I disconnected the kitchen faucet, and then we cleaned the floor in preparation for the flooring.  Now we had  our first dilemma, where to roll out 22 feet of flooring now that the great room was filled with all the kitchen stuff.  Laurie suggested we use the concrete deck outside our bedroom.  It was the perfect size of 10' x 22'. We cleaned off the deck and placed the tarps and plastic down as protection.  Of course this morning would be one of the windiest days we have had in awhile and we had tape, rocks and anything else we could think of to hold everything down until we got the vinyl outside.  Now came dilemma number two, how to get the vinyl to the backyard.  Laurie had a hard enough time carrying it into the house from the truck and she found she could not lift it long enough to even get it out the door.  So I made a harness out of rope that could go over her neck and give her better grips for her hands.  It took a few stops to make it to the backyard, but she made it (such a tough girl!).

Once it was on the patio, we unrolled it, measured it and cut both the width and length keeping the scraps for possible future use.  The new size of 10.5' x 22' (original size was 12' x 30') was much easier to carry back to the house.  It still took some work getting it positioned properly in the kitchen, but once we had one corner and end situated, we were able to start trimming the excess.  I found it easier to do the trimming in two stages, first trim the bulk of the excess so that the flooring was easier to bend and maneuver, then make the final cut.  Luckily I started doing the final trim down where the kitchen cabinets would go because that was not my best work and would be hidden by more than baseboards.  Once I got about halfway done, I found a good method of trimming and the rest of the floor went under the drywall much better.

The flooring laid in the kitchen after getting the initial dimensions cut outside

This was the toughest side to work since it has two points of excess

The corner and end we started with

Cutting the excess to make trimming easier

The final trim to line up with the drywall

The flooring after the edges were trimmed

Looks really nice from this viewpoint

Once it was trimmed, we had to make the cuts for the two floor vents: one under the sink and the other by the kitchen table.  Again I started cutting out just the center so I could see into the holes and then trimmed to the edge.  Finally we had to put acrylic double-backed tape under the vinyl where the refrigerator would go to keep it from moving the flooring.  We pulled back the corner, placed some tape in a large X and put the flooring back down.  The kitchen is done!

Cutting the floor vent on the east wall that is under the dining table

Looks better with the vent cover installed

Starting to trim the vent that resides under the kitchen sink cabinet

This vent is just a hole that gets vented out the front of the sink cabinet

The flooring pulled back to apply the acrylic tape

Next to the wall you can see a faint image of a large X of double-backed tape

View number one of the complete flooring

View number two

Since the temperatures are not forecasted to get below freezing this next week, we left the water turned on to allow the sprinklers to run but we did turn off the hot water tank.  We also left the heating system at its normal programming to allow the new flooring to acclimate over the week.  Since the kitchen was disassembled and everything was stored in the great room, we did not have anything else to do but return to the Valley.

Stats: 2 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 3/26/12-4/2/12: $49
Remodeling expense to date: $39,347