The Floor

Pretty much all we did today was the floor in the upstairs bathroom. Silly us. We thought that it would be a pretty quick job, then Nathan would be able to work on his trailer and I would be able to sand my chairs. It's 9:00 at night and we're still working on the floor. I'm hoping we'll be able to get it done tonight.

We got up this morning and Nathan took the toilet off so I could get to the rest of the linoleum. It's been hanging out in our dining room all day. At one point, Owen asked if it still worked when it was there. I'm glad he asked before he tried it. We kind of figured this would happen, but we found that the sub-floor was water damaged in some places and we decided to replace some of it. On the rest of it, I had to use a hand plane to make it smooth enough. I had had a hard time prying off some of the linoleum. That's actually what took the most time, and caused the most pain.

When Nathan took up the sub floor, there was a little section of the sub-sub-floor that needed to be replaced. Then we saw a smaller bit of damage in the sub-sub-sub-floor. So we replaced three sections of flooring. Then, I put down some leveler to try and level things out. It was frustrating work, but I think the results were pretty good. We had to let that dry for 2 hours and now we're ready to cut and glue down the new linoleum. Nathan's in there right now measuring to cut.

After we get the linoleum in, we need to re-set the toilet and caulk. I told Nathan when we get the floor all put in, I want to celebrate by buying a new shower curtain, rugs, and wastebasket.

Tonight, I am grateful . . .

1. The biggest thing I am grateful for is that we have two bathrooms!! I am SO glad that we had another bathroom to use while we were doing this project. I'm glad we were able to take the time to do it right instead of feeling the need to do it quickly so we wouldn't be without a bathroom all day.

2. I'm grateful that Jo knows how and is willing to make lunch for her and her brother and sister. It made it nice to be able to just keep working.

3. I'm grateful that it rained so I didn't feel so bad about staying inside all day. It's hard for me when the weather is so nice and I have to be inside. On the flip side, I'm glad that there were times without rain so my kids could go outside and play.

4. I'm grateful I was able to find time to finish loading my dishwasher and get it started before my dishes got too overwhelming.

5. I'm grateful that my body has the ability to work hard. It's not too happy right now after being on my hands and knees all day working on the floor, but I'm grateful that it can work hard and recover from working hard.

I did not grow up remodelling, or working on houses. I think sometimes Nathan forgets that and gives me a project expecting that I know how to do it. Today it was leveling the floor. He told me to level the floor and left to get adhesive. I read the container and it wasn't much help for what I was doing. I tried to do it and got frustrated. But I kept at it and I got it done. Not only did I get it done, but I only had to scrape a few areas that were a little high after it dried. For not knowing how to do something, I feel like I did an okay job. I'm feeling like there was some help involved in that.