The great flooring project

We thought it would only take a weekend, we were wrong. Mostly we were not accounting for the learning curve since neither of us have installed laminate prior to this. We have learned some truths and some not so truths about laminate flooring.

1. You can't get it wet and leave it wet for any period of time. Yes it's a thin layer or wood on top, but what lies underneath is basically compressed sawdust/cardboard, and we all know what happens when that gets wet and it isn't pretty.
2. If you do get it wet, the best course of action is to dry the area as quickly and thoroughly as you can and stack some heavy books or something on top of it to compress it back into shape as much as possible. These 2 points we have not experienced yet, but we were told by others.
3. Snap together laminate, while it does in fact snap together, does not "just snap together". The pieces do fit together in those little grooves, but they have to be juuust right or your snap together is more like a train wreck. You will need a little persuasion on most pieces to get them together right.
4. When you drop stuff on laminate, it's really loud. Much louder than linoleum or bare concrete.
5. You will learn how uneven your sub-floor really is when installing this. We're just choosing to ignore this since we are definitely not going back to fix it now. 
6.The tools you will need for this project are:

• A good saw (thanks to our neighbor for loaning us his)
• Lots of blades for said saw because this flooring eats them
• A jig saw (also with lots of blades) for those tricky areas
• Kneepads!!
• A rubber mallet
• A pro pull bar, but we call it a "squirrel" since we didn't know what was really called until we broke the one our neighbor loaned us and had to buy another one.
• An oscillating saw- you'll use this to cut all the door frames that you have to go under (thanks to our other neighbor for loaning us this along with the squirrel we broke)
• A couple of scraps to use as protection against "persuasion"
• A tape measure, a sharpie or other marking device, a chiropractor, some ibuprofen, maybe some icy hot... 

I'm sure I'm leaving out some supplies but those are the most important ones.

Here's how our schedule went:

• Day 1 (which was a Friday evening after he got home from work): We got very little done, but learned alot. 
• Day 2- Saturday: We motored through flooring like no body's business. We were armed with a little knowledge and an intense desire to git 'er done!
• Day 3- Sunday: We were so sore we could barely move so things went really slowly. We did manage to get probably the hardest areas in the house done- 2 closets and the hallway which had to join the living room and dining room and we were a'scared that things would never line up but they by some miracle did. YAY!! *happy dance*
• Day 4- Monday after work: this hasn't happened yet, but we are seriously hoping to finish it tonight. We don't have that much area left to go and the cuts will be easy compared to what we had to deal with yesterday. 

We will not really be completely finished with this project for several more days because we still have to paint and reinstall the baseboards which in theory should go pretty quickly. I'm hoping to get them painted one day and install them all the next. When that actually happens... well we'll just have to wait and see.

Hallway to Living Room

Front door to kitchen- ignore the laundry basket, I've been busy! :)

Living room

Dining room

You probably can't tell from this pic, the the area between the bar and the table looks HUGE now!

All that we have left to do in the kitchen :)

I can't think of a good reason why we shouldn't get this done tonight other than the fact that our jig saw has issues and I need to either fix it today or borrow one to finish up. Either way, I really seriously hope that tonight sees the end of this project. After this, we will only have the baseboards & some random trim to paint and install and painting the half bath, then we are DONE for a while. :) The projects over the last few weeks have really changed the house. The outside has been done since spring, and now the inside is almost there as well. It finally feels like we have arrived. It feels like OUR house now since we have pretty much redone everything including the kitchen sink. I personally feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, one that I've carried since we bought the house 3 years ago. Sure there are other things that we'd like to change and do, but none of them are huge issues at this moment. We're ready to think about something other than the house for a while. We're ready to enjoy what we've done and just live here like normal people. -Kellie-