Kitchen Floor Coming Up

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I didn't get the entire floor up, but I did have success with the tiny flush-cut, muscle-operated saw that I bought for $10. Sometimes hand tools are the solution to a problem, and that gives me a warm fuzzy.

Because I'm installing the new floor around the cabinets, I need to cut away the old floor just flush to the cabinets. For some reason the Home Depot universe does not include a power tool for this purpose--probably because it is not safe to expose a spinning saw blade with no protective cover, and the protetive cover would be in the way and would not allow you to cut flush to a surface. I suppose we need to be protected from ourselves. We just can't resist sticking our fingers into the path of spinning metal.

As I was pulling up the floor, a piece of the subfloor also pulled loose and I was able to peer into the darkness underneath and see the original footer of the house. Some carpenter had taken the time to do a very neat and efficient job of it, only to have the work covered and sealed in darkness for nearly a century. Much of my software work suffers the same fate. Kudos to you, my long-dead carpenter friend. Good job.

The Floor

I'm putting in a new oak floor in the kitchen and breakfast room, and I've already started. So far, I've pulled up the old floor in the breakfast room, pulled up the subfloor, jacked up and leveled the joists, and put in a new subfloor. During the process, I fell through the joists and cut up both my legs. Cheryl was out of town when this happened, and I could have died if the injuries had been at all serious.

Last night I started pulling up the kitchen floor. I was pleased to find that much of it is rotten and in need of replacement (and not just refinishing). The old subfloor is original to the house (1924) and seems to be in pretty good shape, though I see one bad spot so far. I'm leaving the cabinets in place and cutting around them (instead of pulling them out of the way)--another labored decision on my part. In the early mornings I toss these types of decisions back and forth, as if I have nothing better to think about, which apparently I do not.

Today, there will be more destruction, more ripping up, more nail pulling, more use of my mini sledge hammer and pry bar. It's 9:00 am and I'm jazzed up on coffee. I can really do this.

Get to Work

I work for a living. I'm a software consultant.

But this is about real work--in the back yard and in the house, with no paycheck, no rules, no deadlines. Work that I do because I want to and because I can do it. (Yes, I can.) And because I can't stomach the idea of someone else doing it.

This blog is for me, mostly, but you can read it.