Prep

It always takes longer than expected.

To be fair, any time we've undertaken a home-renovation project that is more than just applying a fresh coat of paint, we're doing that thing for the first time. And laying hardwood flooring is a first for us.

I suppose the prep work isn't new. DW and I did the demolition work on our kitchen and family room, when we tore up the vinyl flooring and the carpet. This time, it was on a more massive scale.

We figured that we would start with the hallway, since that was where we had planned to start setting down the wood. We were then going to work on the upstairs spare room/study because it was the smallest room and no one was sleeping in it.

Ripping up the carpet was easy and didn't take long, and in less than an hour both rooms were stripped of their flooring. What took more time was removing the edging that held down the carpet and all of the staples that held the foam underpadding.

We also had to ensure that the existing wood screws were secure and not sticking up, and we had to further secure the subfloor with more screws. That took a lot of time and was hard on my back and knees.

The most challenging part was to remove the old nosing at the top of the stairs and along the ledge at the base of our bannister. DW, who had lots of time during the past couple of weeks, took to watching lots of DIY videos and conversing with our friend who is an expert on laying hardwood, and who also loaned us all of his tools for the job.

DW learned how to cut around the balusters with a table saw and spent the first morning of our reno on practicing with rejected pieces of flooring. She did that while I removed the old nosing and prepped the floors.

When it came time to cut the new nosing, the only help I gave to DW was to hold the nosing when the long ends were starting to droop off the sides of the table saw. It's very slow going to make sure she didn't cut outside of the lines.

She did a pretty good job.

That afternoon, we learned that the supporting beams, under the subfloor, run parallel to the hallway, which meant that the wood slats could not run in the same direction. While we could start laying the hardwood against the nosing, we'd have to go perpendicular, which meant that we needed to start at Kid 1's room.

We weren't ready for that.

We had already moved all of the furniture from the study into our bedroom. We needed to move Kid 1's furniture into the study and rip up her carpeting.

That would have to be day 2, which was Sunday.

Kid 1 has way more stuff in her room than was in the study, so we could only move so much of her furniture into that room. The rest had to be crammed into DW's and my room, which already held the contents of the study. Our ensuite bathroom is largely out of bounds, save the toilet and sink area, and we have clear access around our bed.

We couldn't fit Kid 1's bed or dresser anywhere, so we've decided to leave them in the room and we'll finish one half of the room, move the furniture onto the hardwood, and continue with the other half.

Sunday was a shorter day than Saturday because we started running out of steam and we didn't want to be exhausted going into Monday, especially when DW had a new job to start. (For me, Monday started with shovelling the driveway after our first full snowfall.)

We'll do what we can in the evenings, hopefully finishing Kid 1's room so that she doesn't have to sleep on the sofa for too long. If all goes well, from here on in, we hope to have all of the flooring completed by the end of next weekend, but there is one obstacle.

On Friday, I'm having surgery to finally take care of my appendix, which means no heavy lifting for a few weeks. Kid 1 and DW will tackle the majority of the work from that point, to completion.

I just get to watch.

Stay tuned.