Tag: flooring

In the Zone Part III: If at First You Don’t Succeed, Don’t Bother

In this segment, we discuss how to install faux wood plank flooring on your less than perfect mudroom floor.

First:

Go to your local home improvement center, choose a product, and arrange for an agent to come out, measure the area in need of flooring, and calculate an estimate. Wait 3 weeks for the measurement appointment, then wait 3 days for the estimate to come back.

On the 4th day (or the fifth, if you’re feeling generous) call and leave a message inquiring about the estimate. Wait 3 more days, then call again and leave another message. Repeat as necessary.

If/when you get your estimate, head to the store to sign your contract and make payment so they can order your cool new retro black and white sheet vinyl tile.

Wait 1-3 weeks for a call telling you when your product will arrive at the store. When you think you’ve waited long enough, call the store to inquire as to the status of your order. Repeat as necessary.

Once you have confirmed when your product will arrive at the store, schedule your delivery date, and then contact the installation company to set up your installation. Listen with annoyance as they tell you they will not schedule your installation until the product is actually on site, then grumble privately about the draconian policies of the company in question as you hang up the phone.

Briefly weigh the merits of calling back later to say the product is on site against the odds of being caught lying. Then ask yourself, How much do I value my reputation? What happens if the product doesn’t show up before the installers do? How easy will it be to find someone to install it if they get mad and decide they don’t want the job?

The day before your product is to be delivered, receive a call from the home improvement center confirming your delivery window for the next day. Plan to be on site 2 hours before and 2 hours after your 4-hour delivery window. Also, if it works best for your schedule for them to arrive at the early end of your window, plan for them to arrive near the end of your window, and vice versa. That way you won’t be disappointed.

On the day of delivery, avoid coffee, water, and all other liquids (including sunscreen) to reduce the likelihood of being in the bathroom when the delivery truck arrives. Should you feel the need to use the bathroom, weigh the odds of having to cough or sneeze with a full bladder against the repercussions of missing your delivery and waiting another 3 to 14 days for a new delivery date.

Two hours after your delivery window has closed, visit the restroom (if you dare) then call the store for an update on your delivery. Discover to your chagrin, that the product never arrived at the store, and that Lance thought Chad called to tell you they weren’t coming, and Chad thought Lance called to tell you they weren’t coming, and Chad told Christine that Lance told you they weren’t coming, which is why Christine didn’t call you herself.

Reconsider your stance on the draconian nature of the installer’s scheduling policy as you wait on hold to schedule another delivery appointment. Schedule the new delivery appointment for 3 days after the product is allegedly set to arrive at the store. Repeat as necessary.

Then:

When the product is delivered, contact the installer to schedule installation.

Wait 3 weeks for the installation date, then greet the installers, lead them to the mudroom, then go to another area of the house to work on another project while the installers unwrap the cool new black and white sheet vinyl tile and prepare the floor for installation.

Hearing something close to your last name being called, walk back down the hall to the mudroom where the two installers stand looking baffled and somewhat annoyed. Learn that the store didn’t order enough product for your project because of the distance between where the pattern begins and then begins again is longer than usual.

Reconsider the wisdom of trusting your project to a store that doesn’t seem to have its shit together. Take a deep breath and contact the store to order more product.

Wait 3 days for your additional product to come in, followed by 3 more days for an installer to be available. Repeat as necessary.

Arrive at the worksite to discover that the installers who started your project aren’t available, and that that the guy who came in their place looks 80 years old, can barely bend his knees, and coughs like he has Covid-19, which is a strong possibility since it is June of 2020 and what else could it be?

Resolve to work outside that day, even though its 89 thousand degrees in the shade, to avoid contracting Covid-19. Wait three hours, put on a mask, and go back in the house for a bottle of water, and check on the installer’s progress. Try not to look alarmed or disgusted when you find the installer sitting on the floor talking to a representative from the sheet vinyl manufacturer on his cell phone because he can’t figure out where the tile pattern begins and ends, and thus can’t figure out how or where to cut the tile.

Decide that life is too short to put up with this crap, then fire the installer and call the store to cancel your contract and ask for a refund. Laugh maniacally when informed by a flooring rep that they can cancel the contract and refund your installation fees over the phone, but you’ll have to return the tile to the store yourself to get a refund for the material.

While at the store to return the sheet vinyl, choose a faux wood interlocking plank product. Decide that, while it looks more like pictures of wood planks than actual wood planks, it will make a dandy covering for your funhouse floor. Best of all, you can take it home today. In your very own vehicle. And you can stop to use the restroom any time you please.

Finally:

Arrange for a handsome retired marine to install the faux wood plank floor. It may take him a while to get the hang of it, and you may have to feed him cake and listen to a lot of swearing. But at least he’ll get the job done without giving you Covid-19.

Advertisement

In the Zone Part II: Headers and Footings and Stringers, Oh My

Another unexpected casualty of our seemingly endless battle with the knotty ranch was the front porch. Bounded by a broad concrete slab below and an equally broad awning above, this aspect of the property appeared serviceable. That is, it seemed to perform its primary functions, which were to give folks a solid surface on which to walk—or stand, sit, sleep, or even skateboard, for that matter—and to provide shelter from the elements while walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, skateboarding, falling, sustaining a concussion, and waiting for the paramedics.  

Comprised of hunter green metal and supported by five 8 x 8 faded seafoam green posts, the awning itself seemed sturdy, if a bit overengineered, not to mention ugly. Much like the Golden Girls-era ceramic tile living room floor, I wasn’t wild about it, but it was reassuring to know it would function as is, especially given how many other things did not.

So the Jarhead and I decided to delay addressing its aesthetic shortcomings until after we had replaced the roof, repaired the sagging ceilings, and updated the interior; or until one of us inherited a fortune from a heretofore unknown but incredibly generous long lost relative; or until a tornado sucked up the house and dropped it on an unpleasant woman with a penchant for flashy footwear, at which point a bogus wizard or kindly insurance adjuster would help us build another one—whichever came first.

I know that’s a lot to hope for, but we’ve always been the hopeful sort—as evidenced by the fact that we keep buying houses that most people wouldn’t give a second look—but stay with me. The ride gets even wilder.

It was about the time we made the decision to leave the front porch alone that the guys working on the kitchen ceiling discovered, among other things, that the drains were vented into the attic (for a refresher on that list of revelations, check out the previous post, In the Zone.) In the course of investigating those issues, they also realized that the bay window near the kitchen sink had no header, and that the structure inside the awning was literally a sprawling tower of lumber with no cross ties holding it together laterally and was ever-so-slowly pulling apart and flattening out under its own weight. We also learned that to make room for a proper header, the bay window would have to be replaced with a shorter window, and that—perhaps best of all—the structures above the awning were connected to the structures inside the kitchen ceiling, and thus would cost less to repair if we did it all at the same time.

In other words, the fates REALLY wanted us to update that front porch. A few weeks and several sleepless nights later, we had a new and improved front porch with a cheerful white awning, recessed lighting, three—not five—gorgeous cedar tone posts, two swanky storm doors, and one bright, beautiful kitchen window. It may not look that great yet—since its overall mood is still calico cat meets the patchwork puppy—but once we’ve painted the siding and the trim, it should finally pass muster.

That’s the good news. Now for some not-so-good news.

Among the things we had noticed but were either too busy or too deep in denial to look into at first was a disconcerting slope in the mudroom floor. Now, by disconcerting, I don’t mean a golf or tennis ball would roll away if you set it down. I mean, don’t look now but my glutes are getting quite shapely from walking up and down this hill all day long. To put it another way, if the room was just a few feet longer we could have charged kids to slide down it on gunny sacks to raise money to pay for the repairs.

Okay. That may be a bit of an exaggeration. We probably wouldn’t have raised anywhere near enough money to pay for the repairs.

Anyway…

The mudroom itself was built as part of an addition completed sometime between 1970 when the mobile home at the center of this hybrid dwelling was hauled onto the land and 2019 when we bought it, and also served as the laundry room. The addition connected the mobile home portion to the garage and included a bedroom and a cute but oddly shaped bathroom owing to the fact that the house and the garage did not sit parallel to or even close to perpendicular to one another.

When our contractors finished the kitchen and the awning and finally had a chance to look into the mudroom issues, they found that the outer wall had been built without footings, and the windows had been installed without headers. They also found that the idiots and/or crooks who built the addition had gotten frighteningly creative when it came to choosing material for the stringers that support the floor.

Case in point, the wooden rod that had once been the handle of a broom or mop, and the chunks of studs, 1-inch planks, and bits of siding where there should have been 2 x 10 or 2 x 12 boards. Which made me wonder: had they resorted to the broomstick because they’d run out of spare siding, studs, and planks that would span the distance between the walls? Or had they resorted to spare siding, studs, and planks because they had run out of broomsticks? Who can say?

Now you may be asking yourself, why would someone go to all the trouble and expense to build an addition connecting their house to their garage and not protect that investment by doing it properly and/or according to code.

I don’t blame you. We found ourselves asking that very question, as well as several others. Like:

Why would you go to all the time and expense to tear off the roof of a mobile home, build a spacious addition along the entire east side, vault the dining room and living room ceilings, finish them with beautiful knotty pine, and then not bother to make the seams straight, the corners square, or the floors, walls, or doorways level?

And: Why would you go to all the time and expense to put a bazillion windows and glass doors in every room of your house, and then not frame those doors and windows with proper headers to make sure they remain plumb and continue to open and close?

Maybe they were do-it-yourselfers and didn’t know any better. Or perhaps they hired contractors who didn’t know better. Or maybe they hired carpenters who knew better but took short cuts to increase their profit margin. Either way, we had a wall in our mudroom that was sinking, and a floor that belonged in a funhouse.

So, the wall came down, footings went in, and the wall went back up (minus the windows, since new windows cost money) along with a new subfloor, a second HVAC system (since the one in the mechanical room was inadequate to the task) and a couple white shaker cabinets, plus a row of quaint matte black hooks and space for the for the Jarhead’s many pairs of boots.

In case you’re wondering, he doesn’t have a boot fetish. He just buys a new pair here and there and never throws the old ones away.

But that’s not important right now. What is important is that we got the mudroom and porch structure fixed.

Now about that flooring.

, , , , ,