We Have a Floor! Mostly.

Over the weekend you probably saw some of my instagram posts of the kitchen (I say probably because I know you all eagerly follow us on IG, right?). This weekend the big undertaking was finally installing the floor. As you know, this floor has been the kitchen reno issue that just won’t freaking quit…and while I hoped this weekend would be the final push, alas we’re not quite there because of course we needed to hit a (final?) snag. But we’re so close.

When we last left off, I had tried unsuccessfully to install them myself, and after 8 hours of frustration had given up in a heap of exhaustion.

(As a reminder, we’re using Forbo Marmoleum Click, a floating floor linoleum product.)

Fortunately, one of the guys who worked on taking down our kitchen wall came to the rescue and agreed to take on this project. He planned to start in the kitchen, so on Friday night we cleared everything out to make it as easy as possible for him. First we removed all the drawers from the kitchen island and unscrewed the cabinets from one another, moving the cabinets into the shed (obviously) because we didn’t have room anywhere else in the house and it was supposed to rain:

We also took the drawers out of the small cabinet along the pantry wall, and moved that cabinet into the living room. Doesn’t it look great next to the TV?

We piled the drawers in Sam’s study, and a few on the stairs.

Then we removed the pantry, which we put in the sunroom since we knew it would be easy to move back as soon as Nick was done with the kitchen and ready to start on the sunroom. We also moved the fridge in there, after first carefully disconnecting the water line.

Lastly, we took off the side panels of the fridge surround to make it as easy as possible to lay the flooring down.

Those we stored in the hallway along with the countertop from the island.

Basically we spent a few hours undoing a bunch of the kitchen progress we’d already made…clearly we embarked on this whole thing in the totally wrong order. We just didn’t know how it would all play out, so the process has definitely had some inefficiencies. That left us with an empty kitchen.

The last step was to spend ~30 minutes going over the floors one last time with a screwdriver and hammer to chisel up any remaining thinset that seemed like it was going to be too lumpy to put the floors over. We used an electric hammer to demo up the thinset originally, but it was so big and heavy that we definitely missed a few places.

Nick arrived bright and early on Saturday morning and quickly got to work. After a few hours, he called me in to inspect his progress.

I was so relieved that he seemed to be making great headway, but also relieved when he told me that it was definitely a challenge at first and he wasn’t initially sure if he was going to be able to do it — that made me feel like less of an idiot for not being able to DIY this one, since the entire internet still claims that this is a pretty easy DIY. Fortunately he got the hang of it and made quick progress while Sam and I peeked in occasionally to admire.

After a few hours, he was ready to put the flooring under the oven, so we pulled it away from the wall as far as the gas hose would allow. Of course we also managed to pull off the over door in the process.

We tucked it away securely to reattach later in the day (aka threw it in the middle of the living room floor).

Nick was such a pro, I don’t know how he managed to get around the tight corners by the oven but he did. He also did great work getting the flooring under the door casings.

Because the flooring can expand and contract a little, you need to leave about a quarter inch of space between the floor and any surrounding surfaces, so we’ll be installing quarter round along the baseboards and cabinets to cover the gap.

Where the floor transitions to other rooms, he left a gap where we can install wood transition pieces.

I’ll post more about that process when we do it!

He made such great time that by ~4pm he was ready to move on to the sunroom, so we moved the fridge and pantry back into the kitchen and he got to work. However, by the time he got halfway across the room, it was becoming clear that we had a problem: we were going to be 1 box short in material. I’d planned for 10% overage to account for cuts and Nick was very smart with using the pieces as well as possible (there was so little waste), but you just never know and we clearly were just a little under what we needed. Because the floor obviously could not just give in and be done already.

Nick had planned to come back on Sunday to finish, but he suggested that we press pause so I could track down some more flooring, and he would just come back when I had everything ready to go (instead of coming back to do a little more Sunday and then coming a third time). He’s truly the best.

So the sunroom is still looking fairly disheveled:

But the kitchen is looking awesome, especially since we took the time to move everything back in and reassemble drawers and fridge surround.

I’m so glad my dad and I took the time to trim the bottom of the fridge surround when he was visiting last time — it now sits perfectly on the floor and still lines up with the top of the cabinet.

I also took the time to attach the pantry base to the wall, use my jigsaw to widen the hole for the outlet, and then attach the pantry body to the wall as well so it’s solidly in its final resting place:

Now the only thing I need to do is build some cutting board storage for that empty space between the cabinet and pantry, and then I’ll be ready to put in wood counters there and on the island and start painting the cabinets! Of course the pantry is far from done (it needs shelves and doors) and we still need to build a set of shallow cabinets for the other side of the fridge, but since my dad is helping with those and it may be closer to the end of the summer when that happens, I want to move forward with painting what we have in the meantime.

I’m so thrilled with how the floor is looking. One interesting thing is the marmoleum takes on a slight amber tint when it’s not exposed to sunlight, so the pieces that came fresh from the box are a little greener than the pieces that were sitting out exposed for the last few weeks. When Nick first started working he had a moment of concern where he thought I’d accidentally bought slightly different colors, but fortunately I knew about this and wasn’t worried. All the tiles will become the same color over the next few days/weeks. I tried to capture the difference in some photos — it’s pretty subtle, but definitely visible:

As for getting that last elusive box, I was in a bit of a pickle. I bought the flooring from Green Building Supply, which has free shipping for anything over 185 square feet. However, shipping for just two boxes (because I am definitely not just buying one additional box and risking this happening again) would normally be $150. However, I contacted the folks at Green Building Supply, and their owner got back to me within 24 hours to say that they would be happy to waive the shipping cost in order to help me out. That’s even after I left a frustrated review when I was unable to install the flooring myself, which they actually followed up with a direct phone call to see if they could help me in any way. In sum, I can’t say enough great things about their customer service (and I never mentioned that I’m a blogger, so I feel confident this is how they treat all their customers).

So anyway, that’s the tale of how we are almost (achingly) close to being done with the floors! I will plan to share an update when they’re done that includes a final budget breakdown for this totally unexpected part of the kitchen renovation. In the meantime, we’ll count this as some awesome progress!

Sharing at the Creative Gallery