Okay, so the blood was a bloody nose, but the sweat and tears were real. And the floors are apparently my nemesis for the moment. (At least it’s not plumbing this time; see this essay for details of my ongoing love/hate relationship with plumbing.) But I digress, back to the floors.
Bathroom Floor
The plan for the bathroom floor has been the paper bag floors, as found in Holly’s Corner Blog – Paper Bag Floor , and I followed the direction — except, I had a roll of brown paper hand toweling, which was just about 12 inches wide, and I thought, perfect, I will use it up, and it will be easy to cut up into squares, and it was that. That was my first mistake. My second mistake, was that I bought the wrong kind of polyurethane, which I realized when I was working with it, and getting rather light-headed, even with the windows open, and it wasn’t washing off my hands (or elbows, or knees, or feet) with water. Yup, I got the oil based kind. I did manage to get the floor down, and it took forever to dry, and then it had all kind of air bubbles in it, and it not only looked like cracked leather, it was kind of crinkly like dried out leather, and it took almost half the can of polyurethane. So
1 MISTAKE+1 MISTAKE = FLOOR FAIL.
That’s where the tears came in, the first time in this flooring adventure.
So I gave up, momentarily defeated, but came back to it the next day, and I pulled it out, scraped, and scraped some more, tried sanding, which just made the mess worse, but eventually got nearly all of it up, and the floor was smooth. Then I decided I would try again, this time with the roll of brown paper, and if it didn’t work out, I would go to plan C, which would be putting tile in instead (but I really wanted to do the paper bag floor, because A) it looks really cool,at least in my cousin’s home, and B) it’s less expensive to do than tile, and C) I am stubborn, and I wanted to make it work. This time I decided to use the water/glue mixture and see how that worked, I figured I had nothing to lose. So I went ahead, this time the paper went down much more easily, and didn’t take nearly as long. I even had enough time to take a break and go listen to my son play at Terra Mia (he is a very talented musician); I especially liked the song he sang in Italian.
When I got home, I checked the floor, and thankfully, it had dried flat, sticking to the cement, without a bunch of air bubbles. I rather like the result, so far. It has dried, and the next step is to apply the coats of polyurethane on top.
The next day I decided to take progress pictures, and went into the bathroom, with Captain Underfoot following me of course, and I shut the door so I could get a wider view of the floor. But then, after I had taken the pictures, when I went to open the door, I discovered to my chagrin, that it doorknob was broken, and it wouldn’t turn. Just my luck, Captain and I were stuck in the bathroom, and no one was there to let us out. Luckily, I had my cell phone with me, so I did what anyone else would do, and made a video documenting our stuckness (yes, that’s a word, I just made it up). Captain whimpered most of the time; perhaps he is claustraphobic. He wanted out. I was thirsty and had to p-double e, but we couldn’t use the sink or toilet, because they have been placed in the bathtub while the floor project is happening. But I called my daughter and asked her to come rescue me. She didn’t even laugh at me, much. (My son, however, was rolling on the floor, I think, as he laughed the whole time he was asking me if I needed help.) My daughter came and passed a screwdriver through the window (which was too small for me to get through) and I unscrewed the doorknob, removed it, and we were able to manually get the bolt to retract so I could open the door.
So, I still need to finish do the polyurethane, but you know, small details like family commitments and going to work have made the progress slow.
Lavender Room Floor
In the meantime, thanks to the generosity of my Go Fund Me supporters, I was able to get the supplies to do a laminate floor in the lavender room. (After much debate on my Facebook wall about whether to do oak or cherry — we ended up going with the cherry.) We got it home and unloaded, and the next day I got started. And got one box worth laid. Then life happens, and a couple of days later, today in fact, my son came over and worked on it for awhile, and got some more of it done. Then when I got home, around eleven after meeting my parents who were in town from out of state for dinner, I decided to do a bit more. And an hour and a half later, after blood (bloody nose), sweat, it was literally dripping off of me, and tears, because the pieces would NOT lock into place like they are supposed to. I had manged to get FOUR count them, FOUR more sections down. Granted, one of them was around the door frame, and I do believe the wall is not straight, which caused some issues. But, after my frustration level reduced me to tears, and sitting there for a few minutes to calm down, I said a little prayer and asked for help. Afterward, I approached it a little differently, and miracle of miracles, it FINALLY snapped into place the way it was supposed to. And it looks wonderful! I love the colors together. But, now it is late, and methinks I should get some sleep. Morning will come way to early.
Progress is being made, slowly but surely. And the pieces are coming together. Thank you once again to everyone who is helping me with this project. I am beginning to see what it is going to be. And my bonus today was that I was able to have dinner with my parents. Sure do love them. It was lovely to see them.
Cheers, Sue/KyneWynn (However you may know me.)
PS: Please continue to share my Go Fund Me campaign, and should you feel so inclined; we do have some incentives for donors, and I certainly deeply appreciate any financial help, which will in turn help me become self-sufficient.
Whew! That was more than I realized. Thanks for sticking with me to the end.
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KyneWynn's Chronicles 