The Daughter Unit and I spend the weekend accumulating ‘ow’s, and the painful evidence that we are both somewhat out of shape. The Daughter Unit went off to a lake park near Austin to a class in paddle-boarding all day Saturday, a recreation which she has been interested in for some time, especially after seeing another paddle-boarder with an inflatable board having fun at Canyon Lake, where we went to spend the occasion of Wee Jamie’s first birthday.

Me, I spent the day alternately minding Wee Jamie (who most considerately went down for a long afternoon nap after about 12:30) and installing vinyl flooring in the den. Yes, I could finally finish out the last element of renovating the den, after the cave-in of the ceiling last year when the drip pan under the HVAC unit in the attic overflowed. The ceiling was repaired late last year, beadboard and cornice installed, the whole room repainted and the closet doors replaced – but the flooring had to wait until I finished paying for repair of my car after the little accident with the hood coming open while on the highway. The particular brand vinyl flooring product that I had to use – mostly because I had half a box left over from doing the front bedroom/nursery last year is not the ultimate expensive one, but I wanted to make use of those bits as it was the brand recommended by NHG in the first place because it has all kinds of good qualities including not needing an underlayment before being installed over concrete. That brand and style has gone up in price, alas, from barely under $3.00 a square foot to 3.80. We had to go back for another box of it today, as there wasn’t quite as much in the leftover box as I thought there was. But I took it in my head to do the install myself, saving a good bit of a bill from Neighborhood Handy Guy (who now has a raft-load of bigger and better-paying projects) plus the weeks and weeks and weeks that NHG would need to fit it into his increasingly busy schedule. I had the tools – a nice little 4-in saw which cuts a fine line and isn’t nearly as heavy and dangerous to manage at the big circular saw – a tapping block, a right angle and a soft-headed mallet … and having watched NHG and his #1 Minion install the first floor, and watching another series of videos on Tube of Ewe – well, why not?

It was mostly like a life-sized jig-saw puzzle, sorting out what would fit, and what I would simply have to cut, whanging it repeatedly with the mallet, and wanging again and again and again until all the joints locked into place. This project also involved moving all of the existing furniture and fittings out of the way, and taking out the closet sliding doors and the doors into the den itself and then reinstalling them once the flooring around the doorways was in place. But as noted – I have all the tools. Circular saw, square, a set of screwdrivers, a hammer, mallet, tapping block … but oh, the labor of shifting all the stuff in the den! Taking down the doors, stacking it all … I was so exhausted by late afternoon, with about 2/3ds of the floor done that I messaged Daughter Unit (on her way home from her paddle-boarding get-together) that she had better hurry up so she could give Wee Jamie his bath, as I was so exhausted, I was afraid that I would drop him.

Well, as of Monday afternoon, the last bits of flooring are in place – and yay! All that is left over is a small pile of vinyl scraps, thanks to careful fitting and utilization of all usable scrap pieces. But I still must cut all the baseboard pieces to fit, and nail them into place. Fortunately, I had bought all the necessary lengths and painted them last year, so I am not out any more money.

I am just not at all certain I am up to doing another floor install, satisfactory as this project has been. (Pictures to follow as soon as the baseboards are installed)