We have floors!!

If you've been following along weekly (THANK YOU!) you may have noticed we didn't post an update last week. I promise I had a good reason! With the Christmas holiday we had some extra time off work for house projects, but also relaxing, and I didn't feel like there was enough progress to show last week and wanted to wait until we had something "finished" to show off.

This is the post I have been waiting 60 days to write. Sixty agonizing days. If you remember way back to one of our first posts, we had the sunken front room filled with concrete that had to cure for SIXTY DAYS before we could lay floors on it. I was literally counting down, I put a timer on my phone so the first thing I saw when I turned it on was how many days til we can lay floors. I was NOT waiting patiently.

We purchased the floors the week we got the keys and they arrived about 2 weeks later, they've been sitting in the garage ever since.

Truthfully, I never even looked at the instructions, we just created a plan (start at the front door and work our way across the front room into the living room then on to the bedroom, kitchen, hall, and guestrooms). Simple!

Not so simple tho in reality. Ha! You can't willy-nilly start the floors wherever you want, they are a "click-lock" system which means you have to start in a far left corner and work your way out. You can't go from the other side (at least not easily) and you can't work "backwards" so that messed with our plan. We decided to start in the dining room in the far left corner and stop at the entry so we can do tile, then pick up the floors again the front room.

The above picture (taken from where I sit on the couch while writing this) shows what I mean (and a sneak peak of the floors!). We started in the dining room, stopped at the entry and started back up in the front room.

I discovered the time lapse setting on my camera and have been having a blast taking videos of our work. Here's one from last week where we start laying the floor.

The video is about a minute and 45 seconds, which translates to about an hour and 45 minutes of work. We actually worked about 2.5 hours before that night was over and before we waved the white flag.

When we bought the house there was old, pretty gross, carpet everywhere except the kitchen, entry, and baths (they were/are tiled). We ripped up the carpet, busted out the tile, and even stripped up the old linoleum we found under everything, so our floors weren't exactly smooth. Laying these click-lock floors requires a smooth surface (no dips/high points), without it, it's tough to get the boards to connect properly. We chose "longboards" from CaliVinyl that are 9" wide, 71ish" long, and TEN POUNDS each, so in addition to fighting the un-level floors, the boards just really aren't very forgiving (but they are GORGEOUS!). We decided we needed to use self-leveling concrete to get a smooth surface.

I headed to Floor & Decor to buy 15 50lb bags of self leveler (and load them into the truck by myself 😒), along with 2 gallons of primer, shoe spikes, and a gauge rake.

First we primed the floors. The primer is pink so you can see where you've put it.

The primer had to sit for at least 2 hours, no more than 24, before we could use the concrete.

Padre helped us with the leveler and we were so grateful, it was no easy feat. We (by we, I mean "Scott") had to move the concrete around to the lanai then we set up a system where I filled the bucket with the 5 qts of water, opened the concrete and dumped it in, Padre mixed it with a drill and mixing attachment, then Scott grabbed the bucket, dumped it on the floor and used the guage rake to even it out. Repeat 15x.

You can't see me or Padre because we are outside, but we were there, working our tails off!

Once the floor was level, it had to sit for 2 days before we could lay floors.

Once we started laying them again they went in SO much easier (it also helped that we had several rows already cut from the last go-round).

We still had to use some featherfinish concrete on a couple areas that weren't as level as we would've liked (it's not foolproof, thats for sure).

We fell into a rhythm laying the floors even though really only one person can lay at a time. Each board locks into the one above and beside it, so you can't have two people working. Scott was excellent at laying the boards, so I helped by opening the boxes of boards, sorting them by pattern, and handing him the appropriate boards so you patterns would be scattered throughout the room.

The instructions say there are "11+ patterns", but I narrowed it down to 4 basic patterns (and one "unicorn pattern" that wasn't different, just lacked the distinguishing mark from its particular pattern so it was more universal.) Here's what I mean:

See how each board has something specific your eye is drawn to? The boards are cut differently, so the "swirl" isn't in the same place on every swirl board (I'm assuming this is why they say 11+). The Unicorn is actually a triangle board that was cut off before the triangle piece of the pattern. In the last photo I lined up a triangle and a Unicorn so you can see how the pattern is still the same, but without the triangle I think it can blend in anywhere!

There was a lot of: "oh, you need a triangle next" and "triangle, swirl, stripe, obviously now you need a knot".

Oddly enough there was also a lot of "you know all my heat comes from my knees!" (Scott complaining about sweaty knees under his kneepads).

Scott not only laid the floors and pounded them into place, he also cut the boards to fit around corners and doorways.

The straight cuts are easy- they are "score and snap"

Here's Fred Flintstone (ahem, I mean Scott) scoring and snapping a board:

The corner cuts required the jigsaw, and I dubbed myself "the jigsaw girl" because I loved this part.

The edges of the rooms needed some partial boards and Padre's table saw made quick work if the rip cuts..

Off of the dining room we have a small hallway with 5 doors (two bedrooms, a bathroom, a closet, and the door to the laundry room). I am not exaggerating when I say this hall took us 9 hours to do. I am not proud of that number, but reminded myself that we are not pros, this is the first time we've laid floors like these, and that hall was literally the most complicated part of the flooring.

Once that was done it was smooth(er) sailing.

We finished the dining room and kitchen the day before Christmas eve and needed to get started on the livingroom if we were going to finish before we both had to go back to work Monday. We got to work priming, and leveling and let the floor sit for two days while we relaxed and enjoyed some low-key festivities. There was a ton of baking with my mom and niece on Christmas eve and opening gifts and a delicious dinner on Christmas with my parents, niece, nephew, and brother. We also got to talk to/"see" (thanks Zoom!) Scott's parents, my favorite brother- and sister-in-law and their kiddos!

Saturday we started laying the floors in the front room. Our plan was to start in the front left corner and work our way across the living room to connect with the kitchen floor. Scott was so diligent in his measuring, but we were 1/8th of an inch off and the floors dont meet perfectly. It's no problem, we'll add a t-transition, but I know Scott was upset. I was just pumped that the floors were laid at all, and I was extremely impressed with his measuring!

It's like that 1/8th of an inch is taunting us!!

Mom and Dad came to help Saturday, they carried boxes of boards, sorted them, and helped rip boards. They also set up our new weather station they got us so we can keep an eye on barometric pressure and wind conditions for boating (woo-hoo!), and trimmed our unruly bushes. Truly lifesavers!

Sunday night we finished the floors in the front room, moved the couch back into place and just relaxed. My feet hurt, my lower back is sore, but I feel SO accomplished!

I don't know about you, but seeing these pictures makes my heart so happy, our little fixer upper house is on its way to being a home!