Starting the ceiling

The ceiling tile arrived this past week, so I began to try and figure out out to arrange them. I had talked with a friend, Alan, about how to start them. He's done a lot of home restoration/remodeling. The instructions gave two ideas: find the middle of the room and start there or start at the corner farthest from the main entry. I thought the farthest corner would be fine and Alan concurred. But he said the corner had to be square.

I went to the corner with the carpenters square and found it was not square. I thought the quarter round used as crown molding may have been a problem, so I took it off.

I discovered the wallpaper on the ceiling wasn't as secure as I thought. The quarter round was holding it up! So after the quarter round was removed, I started taking off the wallpaper. This worked because I was a bit stymied as to how to end the tile where the dining area met the living room.

As I was peeling off wallpaper, I learned more about the house. At some point, the ceiling in the dining area was textured. But plaster was used to smooth it out so wallpaper could be put over it. And then when I got to peeling the wallpaper off the kitchen ceiling, I discovered even uglier wallpaper.

In the kitchen, the wallpaper was more securely attached. I stopped there.

But I went back to my corner with my trusty carpenters square, and it is not square. I will have to start in the middle of the ceiling, whereever that it!

This is such appropriate work to my teaching geometry this fall!

The ceiling tiles are on their way

The ceiling tiles were ordered on Tuesday and are en route. The final choice comes from http://www.antiqueceilings.com/. The style and color are Alfa Antique Copper Chocolate.

In the meantime, since we were in a lull, we went to Arches National Park to camp and hike.

After and Before

The kitchen seems bigger with the new flooring.

Starting the floor

We started the floor today. I can't get over the difference in how it looks -- the dining area is done. We should finish tomorrow.

My frame for flooring is with putting in ceramic tiles. And I had the same mindset with these vinyl planks as far as the glue went. I started out going overboard. And glue got everywhere. We both swear it took our skin off as we kneeled on the floor. But I got better. No more excessive glue seeping up between the seams.

Mark did a great job making the cuts to go around corners and other such things you find in a kitchen.

We are wondering why this took us so long to do this. Why didn't we do this years ago? Oh well.

Chiseling

I am so wanting to get started on the floors. The patch is working well in front of the dishwasher. But we now have to solve the problem of running the coaxial cables and other such wires under a threshold. Whoever put the floors in did not allow for expansion space between the hardwood floor of the living room and the kitchen floor. Both are at the same height. We need to get a threshold between the floors to help with the transition of styles. I was hoping we could find a threshold with an open space on its bottom so we could put the cables and stuff under it. It does not exist. Someone suggested to Mark that we create a space in the kitchen floor. I had hoped we could rent a router. No such luck. A flooring installer suggested scoring the floor with a circular saw and then chiseling out the space. We aren't sure we can adjust our circular saw for that. So now we are using a hammer and chisel to create the space where we can run the cables. And then I can start the floor!! I hope. I want a new floor.

Always get samples

My faux tin ceiling tile samples came today. And I am grateful I ordered samples because I am disappointed. The antique gold of two of them is way too dark. The color was far different from what I saw on the website. The website tile is on the right. I found another product today and am once again getting samples.

Digging out

Today was spent digging out the floor patch I had put on the floor in front of the dishwasher. I am going to lay one or two vinyl tiles in that area and then cover all of it with the faux wood vinyl planks. I was sloppy with the floor patch because at that moment, I thought I'd be covering it with the luan. I had sandpaper, thinking I could use the electric sander it to level it out, but it wasn't working. I am learning. I hope to lay the vinyl tiles to build up to the level of the existing tiles. And then I'll use the vinyl planks on top of them. We will rent a 100-pound roller to go over the vinyl planks. I'm so glad I have the summer off where I can run into a problem and not be stressed out about not meeting my deadline of having the floor done by now.

What to do?

I went to Home Depot and Lowe's yesterday, all set to buy the luan and rent the stapler I needed to do the work. Now I am even more confused. I did not know the staple gun needed an air compressor. So I went into the tools dept. to see if they had anything powerful enough to do the work. An employee asked if I needed help. I told him what I was doing, and he said the staple gun that required an air compressor was the right tool. He brought me to a flooring guy. The flooring guy you can't put another layer of vinyl on two existing ones. I had to strip the top layer of vinyl and then put the luan down on that. He described the machine/tool I needed to rent to remove that layer. I left and went to Lowe's. The flooring guy there was a former student! (I did not recognize him! He recognized me! But after he told me his last name, I remembered him. He was a good kid with great parents.) And he assured me that code allowed three layers of vinyl on a floor without using luan. I asked about his experience and he said he's been doing flooring since getting out of high school. And then let's not forget Wade who told me I could put luan on top of the two layers of vinyl. A friend suggested hiring a contractor. That's beginning to sound better and better. However, the budget may not allow for that. We're now thinking of just putting the vinyl over the existing vinyl and then change things in the future. It can't be any worse than what we have right now, right? Plus these vinyl slabs were such a great deal.

Setback

I was cleaning more of the kitchen floor, specifically the area in front of the dishwasher where the vinyl was coming up due to a flood from a previous owner. Our flood may have worsened it, but that vinyl's been working its way off for quite a while. And it hit me -- we have two layers of vinyl on this floor. Everything I've read says you should not add a third layer of vinyl to vinyl. I had already sent email to Lumber Liquidators with questions about the vinyl coming up and had received an answer from Wade. In his email, he advised that we should put luan down over the existing vinyl. I felt the need to talk to him after the latest discovery and was pleased they put me through. The goal is now to head out to Home Depot and get luan to put over the vinyl. It won't raise the floor as much as ceramic tile would have. Ceramic tile would have required a cement backer board and then you have the tile on top of that. Another setback are the ceiling tiles. My samples should be here on Tuesday.