Working His Fingers To The Bone

    Just for the record, it's still raining, although we did get two days with actual sun this week. It was glorious.
 
 Woodfloor Masters showed up Tuesday to start putting down the floor. In no time at all they had paper down and flooring spread all over the place. I've not seen professionals put down a floor before, so I didn't know how it's done. They lay it out, very closely together, and then start knocking it in place and nailing it down.

   By Wednesday evening they had the downstairs done. The acacia flooring is just amazing. The nature of the wood is such that none of the pieces are very long. The longest ones are about 48", but the grain is so active that your eye doesn't really focus on the shorter pieces. The crew was good about putting the shortest pieces in a pile and using them where the cabinets and island will go, or in the closets.






   Friday night, both the upstairs and downstairs were finished. The crew wiped down the floor, picked up their trash, gave us a big wave and took off.  Ed and I walked the floor looking at all the different swirls and colors in the grain.
   Saturday morning, I gave the floors a wipe with the swiffer and put down protective paper in the most traveled areas. I tried putting booties on the dog, but if you've ever tried to get mittens on a 3 year old on Christmas Morning, you'll have a good idea of how that went.

   I'm still working in the basement, or as I've re-named it...The Dungeon. By the time I finish daily household chores and get down there to work, I'm good for anywhere between three to four doors a day. I stained three on Thursday, had a road trip for supplies on Friday, and did two yesterday afternoon. Only 13 more to go.

   We need to get the laundry/craft room and bathrooms tiled so we can bring in the first set of cabinets. Ed is the tile setter.  He put 1/4" wonderboard down first. All of the wonderboard and tile is a reminder of why we decided to pay someone else to do the hardwood floor. Everything is tough on either the back or knees.
   After the wonderboard is down, Ed very carefully figured out where his control line was. The first row has to go down perfectly to keep everything else in check, otherwise the tile takes on a life of it's own and winds up all over the place.

      As he was hauling out the first bag of thinset, Ed says "Hey Theresa, where is your Kitchen Aid mixer? I can't find it."
    Now I'm starting to get a lump in my throat because I really like my mixer, but I love Ed. What to do!!??
   "Nah...." he says, "Just kidding."
   That rat!

   Friday morning, the first tile, one of many, went down, and he began his task in earnest.  Friday afternoon he placed the last piece in the laundry room.









  At the end of the day as he was cleaning up he says "Man, the end of my finger is really sore, but I don't remember cutting it."
   As I thought about how he did each tile I realized he buttered the back of the tile, wiped the edges clean of thinset and then placed the tile. Since the thinset is essentially sanded cement, he had literally sanded the skin off the end of his finger. Ouch!
  Saturday he did the floor in the adjacent bathroom, with a bandaid on his finger and a piece of cardboard for cleaning up the edges.

 Monday he'll start on the other bathroom floors. We're hoping to get the grouting done later this next week so we can have the first cabinets delivered the week after.

   In the meantime, I'll be working in The Dungeon.