Since then, my dining room table has been buried under the mountain of (metaphorical) crap that usually resides on the shelving unit that straddles my toilet because I had to replace the flooring.
Problem. Fibromyalgia and arthritis plus winter plus flare from hell. *head/desk*
Enter The World’s Greatest Son(TM). He came home for a visit this week and volunteered to rip up the not one, but TWO layers of old linoleum that my grandfather had put down over the wood floors. (The kid is 19 and in a wheelchair and he’s in far better shape than I am. How sad is that?)
Well, he got through the first layer, which was sheet linoleum. The second layer was ooooold linoleum tiles, and they were glued directly to the tongue-and-groove wood floor.
Um, no.
He stopped at the top layer of sheet linoleum and asked me what to do next. I said well, we’re leaving THAT down. You can see where it was uneven already from where my dad replaced the flooring. (The white stuff is caulk I put down. Note to self, next time, don’t put the caulk down first before cutting the filler pieces to fit. UGH.)
So I had a two-part problem. I needed to even up the cuts on the linoleum, and even up the floor (because there was a slight height difference in the back from where the new flooring is).
Fortunately, I still had some remnant pieces of plastic paneling from when we redid the shower a couple of years ago. (By redid I mean we slapped that stuff up on the walls and Liquid Nailed the everlovin’ shit out of it to make it stay up so I could, I don’t know, actually TAKE a shower instead of having to sit and hold the showerhead so I didn’t get the walls wet.)
And guess what? Still had a tube of Liquid Nails. And I Liquid Nailed the everlovin’ shit out of that stuff to stick it down to the floor after I evened it up.
And, of course, Grimmy was insisting on helping.
My son was trying to wrangle Grimmy to keep him out of the way. Because Grimmy is sooooooo helpful. Of course.
So here’s the first part of it down. I know I didn’t do it “right” by putting extra seams in places to make it look all wood planky, and frankly, at this point, I didn’t care. And yes, there was a reason I laid them crossways instead of parallel to the longest wall, because the old stuff I’d put down (that had to be ripped up when the wax ring went) was telegraphing the shape of the t&g planks below through TWO layers of linoleum. So this time I said screw it, I’m laying them the direction of the subfloor so hopefully it won’t telegraph as much.
More progress. No, it’s not perfect. (Ask me if I care. LOL)
The wonky edges around the base of the cabinet and the walls will be covered by baseboard, so I don’t care.
No, I seriously don’t care. You have noooo idea how DONE and OVER this project I was by this point. And yes, massive pain by this point as well, worse than before. This is how desperate I was to get my bathroom put back together again.
Almost there. Starting to actually feel like this might get finished…in my lifetime.
Done.
This stuff I’m not fond of, but it was inexpensive. I didn’t want to put down linoleum tiles, because I despise the lines and seam gappage that happens. I prefer the Allure flooring, but we were at Lowe’s and they don’t carry that. This is a similar laminate “plank” kind of flooring (not wood laminate, as in linoleum planks) but it looks like wood, and it’s sort of tongue-and-groove stuff. (I’d have to actually go outside and look at the box to get the name. It’s been sitting under my sofa since December.)
I used double-sided carpet tape around the edges. Technically, the instructions say let it “float” but in this small (and wet) space, um, I’m thinking noooo. I used it around the edges. (Still need to caulk around the toilet and tub.)
Yes, I know technically I should have removed the toilet and it would have made it easier. (Haha, you’re really funny, you know that?) And you would be absolutely right.
Did I mention this is the ONLY bathroom in our house? No way was I going to wrestle that toilet out of the floor. Fuck that noise sideways with a rusty rake.
But hey, I have a floor. And a dining room table that’s no longer full of all my bathroom crap. Yay!
*Tymber collapses face-first into bed*
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Looks good to me. Job well done!
oh Tymber……I think you did a fine job. I know someone who threw shaggy bathroom carpet down and duck taped to wall base cause she did not like to look at her bad floor. She was making a point to her handy around the home hubby who kept putting it off. He actually left it there for a year just to annoy her more. You did a great job and YOU did it!
Yeah. Hubby put the tile down himself in the “public” areas of the house. This was several years ago when the kids were little. After a day in a half he sent me and the kids to the Holiday Inn Kid’s Resort for a week. Probably why I still have living kids today. Couple of not complete tight tiles. Lines not exactly straight but 10 years later it’s all still there so I guess not too bad.