Living Room Floor Upgrade

The living room floor has been in pretty dire need of an upgrade for a very long time.  It was decided to fix it over Alex's Spring Break.  The morning he decided to start at it, I had an appointment and I took Chance with me so he would be out of the way.  I came back after, and he hadn't made as much progress as he thought he would.  

He took this while I was gone.  That dust has been accumulating for 20 some-odd years.  On that big hole in the middle of the floor?  Yeah, a big metal grate was there, we're still not sure why.  Yes, that is an air conditioner.  It was an experiment to see if it would be more effective.  We didn't have anything really to lose as the AC was on its last legs anyway. 


Another angle.  The white spots?  Mud on the walls for repainting.  Mud because Children.  Where there were holes in the floor for grates, he patched them with newer wood to give it some extra strength.


So I went to Bangor with Chance.  We were going to need floor mats for our chairs once this was all done anyway, and I was 99% sure I wouldn't find any up here.  So to Bangor I went, to Staples.  He had started to put down the OSB, that's the plywood looking stuff.  So instead of it being joists, subfloor, floor as before, it is going to be joists, subfloor, OSB, (floating) floor.  No more big grate in the middle of the floor!  As Alex was doing this, I was attempting to keep Chance behind the gate with me.  I didn't have any other plans to take him anywhere, and he was hungry, so we had a movie lunch (yay for portable DVD player). 


About half the OSB was in before the kids went to bed.  The other half went in and then the dual-purpose foam went on.  Once that was laid down, I helped Alex put in the laminate flooring.  The foam part and the laminate part are where I actually got to help.  The rest was him alone.  And yes, that is my desk with all that stuff on it.  It looks worse because of the cabling that's up out of the way, but it is often affectionately referred to as "The Singularity."


More laminate flooring in!  It is looking really good!


We probably could have finished up that night, but he was exhausted, and I honestly didn't blame him, so we finished the rest in the morning.  Chancellor got to eat out here since the kitchen had stuff in it. 


Didn't take long to finish the rest.  The hardest part was after, the cleanup.  That seemed to take forever.  We got things put back in though. 


Chance approves.


My keyboard is set up now.  The room feels more open, if only for the carpet that covered the grate no longer being needed.  Also, the new floor is brighter, so that helps, too.


I love the floor and I'm so glad it went in!  It looks kind of like a studio floor, but that's okay by me.  Our chairs can actually roll, whereas before they didn't too much because the floor boards had warped so it was not a flat surface at all!  The kids love it.  Without all the dust down there, its much easier to keep clean, and no real need for a vacuum since a broom and dustpan do just fine.  One thing is for sure about living with an engineer, they are always thing of ways to make things better. :)

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you liked what you saw.  Feel free to leave a comment!