This summer Mike and I made the decision to cover the floor of the dining room and the kitchen with linoleum. We are not overly fond of the stuff, but we were even less fond of the slivers we kept getting from the painted plywood that resided there at the time. We contemplated putting bamboo in the dining room section, but because we really want to move the kitchen to the further end of where the dining room is now, and we really don't want wood in the kitchen, not after seeing what a leaky dishwasher can do to a wood floor...we decided to just lay cheap linoleum until the kitchen is moved. So, off we went to the Depot to buy two rolls of linoleum, one for the dining room and one for the kitchen. We settled on one and got it all cut to the right dimensions so we wouldn't have to piece it together, tied it to the top of our van and brought it home. And there it sat for 5 months, in the garage....until yesterday.
Mike has never laid linoleum. He's also the type of person who, if he doesn't know how to do something needs a decade to research how it's done, what way is the best to do it, what tools are needed....ect. I am a hands on learner. I research things for about a 1/2 hour then I want to jump in and get it done. Yes, projects here with both of us working on things is hell...to put it mildly.
Yesterday I was feeling really good, I had slept well the night before and woken up almost completely pain free, so when he came home at 1 because of the snow storm, I thought I would suggest laying the floor so that it would be in for Tryphons birthday party on Saturday. All that had to be done was to tear out the pantry walls and then lay the linoleum. Easy!
I am so naive.
The pantry was put up about 4 years ago and had been serving as a space for things to collect ever since. Once it was emptied it took about 4 hours to dismantle..of course my husband had to take every single nail out of every single board as soon as he took it down. Safe? yes. Practical? no. During the destruction process I managed to get him to agree to bring in the linoleum roll to warm up. It was huge. 12'+ long, and somewhere between 16' and 20' long. It was very very heavy..and very very big. We put it just inside the front door and it ran into the kitchen. I was moving things as he was dismantling and one trip took me over the roll. On my way back, Mike said "what was that?" and I looked up to see what he was talking about (it turned out that something in the "computer stuff" box that was going overhead was sliding and making a noise) and completely forgot about the ginormous linoleum roll. My nickname was "grace" as a child for a reason. I tripped, came down on both knees, my side crashed into the table and I landed face down on the rug. After I could breath again, I asked for two aleve because I knew my pain free day was over, got up and continued moving as best I could. Which wasn't very fast.
Mike managed to get the walls all down, and he cleaned up all the wood while I made dinner. After dinner I pushed him into laying the linoleum. I knew he was getting tired and he didn't want to do it, but I also knew if we didn't do it last night, we wouldn't do it at all, we just didn't have time this weekend. And there was no way in hell I was dragging that roll back out to the garage.
Once we moved everything in the dining room we had to figure out the best way to unroll that much linoleum...we finally figured out that if he lifted the roll in an up right position and i pulled the sheet in the opposite direction..and swore..a lot...it worked pretty easily. Then it was just a matter of trimming it. By that time it was 8 and we just kind of put everything back where it went and plan on letting it sit for a few days then on Monday we'll pull it and push it and get out all of the humps and then tack down all the edges.
It might not be completely finished, but at least the hard parts are done and you can walk on it. It looks so much brighter in here. The kids came down this morning and said " I didn't even have to turn on the light this morning Mom!" Yay! maybe I'll save some money on my electricity bill too! :-P lol
It's not the perfect floor, but it's in , and it's mostly done and it's not giving me any slivers. Now if I could just walk without hobbling......
7 comments:
I cringed when you started to describe your fall!
I feel your pain! ouch!
On Valentines Day, it will be 3 years since we started to demo our in the ground pool, back patio, and a 12x12 Florida room. In it's place, we now have a 1800 sq ft addition that needs to have so many things completed. My master bath is concrete and wood studs. My hubby was excited to start tearing into our pantry. Well, that was October and it is still rough plaster and busted up ceramic tiles.
What I am trying to say is, our men are cut from the same cloth! LOL
LOL I hear ya..my house is filled with unfinished projects...I feel like such a bully when I start badgering him to finish stuff up. I wish I had the personality that didn't care..because right now if I start pushing him to finish something and he gets grumpy, I feel guilty. *rolls eyes* lol
As linoleum goes, yours is pretty nice. I'm just sad you have to suffer for it!
You have to be a "bully" if you don't want to continually trip over half-finished projects.
Feel better soon!
Sometimes I go out of my way to make it look or feel worse than what it is. (I junk things up and make him walk around boxes of stuff, waiting for their home to be finished.) He gets really squirrelly looking at it. It gets on his nerves so bad that one day he will wake up and announce that he has to work on it because he can't stand to look at it anymore! LOL
Start to stack pantry items around his favorite relaxing spot in the living room! LOL Tell him you had nowhere else to put them!
Kimberly is so nice cringing at your pain. I'll admit it, I laughed. In my defense, I laughed because I would have done the very same thing. I hurt myself a lot like that. :) I like your flooring...nice neutral pick. I prefer tile, but linoleum is a practical cheaper choice. We are building the livingroom and it is $1200 to tile it. I'm just painting the concrete for now. The last house had hard wood floors and while they look nice, the are too much work to keep pretty. I want simple. Sounds like we are all living in undone homes! Unless you buy brand-new the remodelling never ends!
I'm not fond of linoleum either, but until we move the kitchen we needed something other than painted plywood on the floor, and linoleum was the cheaper choice :-) Once we move the kitchen I want it tiled.
And don't worry about laughing...I know I looked like a dumbass, the older I get the more clumsy I get.. I need to learn to slow down and watch what I'm doing instead of bulling and jamming through everything...maybe someday i'll actually "get" that lesson. :P
My hubby isn't a researcher, he's more of a jump-in-and-do-it kinda guy. And while this works in some instances, in others it leaves me pleading with him to at least glance at some form of directions!
Ow - that sounded like a nasty fall! Hopefully you recovered quickly.
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