The Flooring Saga

Last time I promised the flooring saga so here it is!

Back in March we ordered the floor and requested the install for mid-April. It should be warm and spring-like by then, right? This was an important point considering that our back up heat, our propane stove, would need to be disconnected and removed prior to the install.


We never quite understood why they installed the stove in the middle of the room in the first place. It totally disrupted the flow of the room. Anyhow, once the stove was removed, guess what happened? Two snowstorms and the temperature hovered around zero. So much for planning ahead. Despite the timing, the removal of the stove completely opened up the space.

Now it was time to lose the plush white carpet. Thank goodness. Pets and white carpet do not mix. I cannot put in words what we thought when we discovered what was under the white carpet. Look for yourself.


Isn't that lovely. Linoleum that was glued directly to the sub floor. And in the rest of the living room we found blue indoor/outdoor carpet also glued directly to the sub floor.

The blue carpet part would peel off relatively easily, but the foam underpad, being glued to the sub floor, would need some serious elbow grease to get it off. Would we need more time to prepare for the installation?


And so the scraping began. We finally decided to let the installers deal with our floor preparation. It was too chaotic having our entire living room stuff crammed into other rooms.

The installers arrived and scraped off the foam. Then they needed to level our sub floor, so up it came.

[As an aside. Jazzy (our cat) had been hiding the entire time the installers were here in the storage loft. But during lunchtime when the workers were not around Jazzy ventured out. Ventured through the hole in the floor down into the crawlspace. And so when the guys returned, Jazzy was scared and jumped up out of crawlspace and ran to his safe hiding place. Needless to say, he scared one of the guys big time. Oops. Maybe Matt should have mentioned that we had a cat.]

And finally, it was time for our new floor to go in. We chose 'Maple with Colours'. Half of the floor is the regular grade and the other half heritage grade. Heritage grade has knots and things like that and we figured it would suit our cottage-look house. We also got the Dog Finish, which helps hide scratches and dirt. Perfect if you have, say, a dog.


Then it was done! It has made a huge difference, the room feels so much brighter and spacious.



We love our new floor. Someday we will do the same in all the bedrooms. But not now, we already know that some serious preparation work will be required in those rooms. So another time.

All that is left to do is reinstall the propane stove. We are moving it to where the chair is in the picture above in the corner. Oh and baseboards and trim. The list is always never ending.

And that's our flooring saga. Hope you enjoyed.