Tag Archives: laminate

Faith’s New Floor

Faith has been living on a cement floor for almost three years.  Her room in downstairs on the basement level and it rarely used.  I have refused to put carpet down there because I think that carpet is dirty, covered in chemicals, and collects dust (which is terrible for a girl with a dust allergy).  For years we have been talking about laying laminate wood flooring in her room, but have never done it.  When I bought my new, beautiful, french door refrigerator from Lowe’s a few weeks ago, I decided to open up a Lowe’s credit card so that I could get a 10% discount on the refrigerator and Faith’s flooring.  As I do for most of my home repair projects, I asked my mom to come and help me.  She is probably the smartest woman I know and she is handier than most men I know.

Of course, my new rule on project is this:  “If you are fixing the floors, you might as well fix the ceilings first.”  In our house, this means that that the popcorn ceiling MUST go!  Tom was out of town that week so I had plenty of time to work on the ceiling.  I have gotten pretty cocky when it comes to scraping popcorn off the ceiling.  This time I literally brought the garden hose in through the window, turned it on low, and sprayed water on the ceilings.  After that I could easily scrape the popcorn off.  It only took about an hour to 1.5 hours to scrape the ceiling.  Yes, my arms and neck were tired, but it was totally worth it.  The next day I spackled the few spots that needed it, sanded a few spots and then just went for it – I painted the ceiling white that night.  In all truth, I had a margarita that night and thought to myself at about 10:00pm,  “I should just go paint the ceiling.”  So I did!  It was easy and looks great!  I am so glad that I took the time to make her room even better.

Here is the room after I took everything out of it except the bed….

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I am somewhat of a “cut corners” kind of gal.  While painting the ceiling I literally just put the roller into the giant bucket of ceiling paint that was left over from the last time we painted the ceilings…..

 

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After the ceilings were done, It was time for the floor.  Mom brought over three different types of saws and we went to work.  Laying laminate floors requires two brains working on the same project.  Mom and I laughed so many times because we kept getting confused and reminding each other how to lay the floor.  I think I came up with the same bad solution to the same problem numerous times.  We had a great time working on the project together.  Mom and I both love a good project so doing this together was just pure joy.

 

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Here is the finished product….

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