Tuesday, December 12, 2017

The struggle

I am not doing well dealing with the upheaval. I have been crabby - maybe because I still hurt a bit or the mess or both. Usually this kind of stuff doesn't bother me. The flooring guy had to plug his sanding machine into the 220 outlet that the stove is plugged into. I needed to do some cooking last night so there was a lot of messing around plugging and unplugging then trying to get the stove partly back into place so I had at least a little bit of room. I have a small kitchen and the stove was in the middle of it. I am so over crawling around stuff. I did get an area set up downstairs in the laundry/utility room with a small fridge, microwave, toaster, and toaster oven. I brought down everything I could think of that I would need to get thru the next few days so hopefully I won't have to go back into the kitchen.

Here is the before of the living room - the kitchen is located to the right.

The master bedroom

Guest bedroom

The entry into the master bedroom

When I first moved in I had this area changed. There was a closet two cabinets and a second door to the small bathroom. I had the closet and the cabinets ripped out, a wall built, and closed up the opening to the bathroom. Here is my drawing of the before and after

When the house was built the wood floor was installed after all the framing, so when the closet was ripped out there was a gap where the framing had been. I salvaged what flooring I could and found matching flooring at the lumber yard. I had to weave the new flooring into the existing which meant tearing out some of the existing. I saw Tommy Silva do this on This Old House so of course I could do it! Here is the patch job before I finished it last night.
I had it all reinstalled except for one row. Someone had trimmed the pieces down for me width wise, but I never got around to finishing the job. Well, last night I finished it. Here is the after

After it is sanded and filled you won't even notice that narrowed strip of flooring. I used three pieces to fill in the area, because that was all I had left of the flooring.

Here you can see the difference in color after the first sanding. I want light floors and so far it looks good.

Other than taking out the recycling and trash tonight I think I will be able to sit down at the sewing machine. I may have to borrow the neighbor's garbage and recycling bins since mine are full. The house is for sale and no one is living there so I will take advantage to clear the stuff out rather than wait another week. I just need to make some space.

4 comments:

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

Hey, I know upheaval! You are doing great, crabby part and all. The floors look great, perfect idea to work this new in amongst the old. For some reason we had decided not to get a dumpster after the flood. So in the end before our cross the street neighbor had moved back in we were using their trash cans too! Gotta be creative!

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

It takes awhile to get used to the upheaval. I had the kitchen, studio and a bedroom all refinished at once so I only had microwave food or picking up meals at a fast food place for about 5 days. All of the other rooms in my house were packed with the furniture from those 3 rooms. The beauty of the floors afterward were so worth all of the trouble.

Vicki W said...

All of that would make me crabby too!

swooze said...

You did a great job. Looking good!