Slow and steady wins the race, isn't that right? Wasn't that the whole point of that tortoise and the hare fable? I must be winning the race to get my floors done then. Except that my speed is more like a snail pace then a tortoise pace. Still, I'm getting somewhere, even if it doesn't feel like much.
Yesterday and today I continued with the prep work to get the hallway ready to lay the flooring. The rest of the baseboards had to be removed, the carpet pad adhesive had to be scraped off the concrete, and I attempted to patch the gouges in the concrete with floor repair goo. At some point last night while I was on my hands and knees scraping away at adhesive with a razor, it occurred to me that Terence had some knee pads. Brilliant idea! Wearing the knee pads was uncomfortable and hot and cut off the circulation in my legs, but it was still better than kneeling on concrete with nothing. (Or kneeling on a cushion that you have to move every few seconds.) Still, even with the knee pads, scraping dried adhesive off a floor with a razor blade ranks right up there with chores forced on poor orphans by their wicked stepmothers. Not my favorite thing ever.
Today I vacuumed the hall for the third time with the shop vac and tackled repairing the concrete that got damaged when we pulled up the tack boards. I found a gritty, concrete-like paste that sounded like it would do the job. Troweling it on and scraping it smooth was another kneepad-required job, but after about an hour and a half of crawling around the hallway, I finally finished it. Some of the gouges may need a second coat-- I'll have to check my handiwork tomorrow after the patches have set and dried.
M was my photographer today-- she got a few pics of me that pretty well show what it has been like. (Speaking of pics, have you noticed that I've had pictures in several posts in a row? What an odd trend for me!)
 |
| Putting on the sexy kneecap-saving pads. |
 |
| Scooping up the floor repair gunk |
 |
| "Dang it, you're supposed to be smooth!" |
Tomorrow the plan is to remove all the obnoxious finishing nails still stuck in the wall from the baseboards, as well as slap on a second coat of floor repair paste if needed. If all goes according to plan I should be laying my first sections of flooring Thursday or Friday!
Comments