I Quit for Now

Those were my words when we were just two boards from completing the installation of the fir flooring. Last weekend we cleaned up all the boards. This included scraping all the layers of junk off the side of the boards, then sanding and cleaning out the grooves. Last Saturday we rented the floor nailer, but our day was cut short so we still had more to install this weekend. We were up early on Saturday and trimmed the ends off all the boards and cleaned up the 8 eighteen foot boards that we had to keep in the living room. Nick headed to rent the nailer while I shop vac’d the floor one more time and made sure the compressor was charged and ready to go.

He got back and we were all set up when we realized that our local HD had given him a floor stapler, not nailer, so we had to go back. We didn’t let this get in the way and we were back in business in 45 minutes. The flooring went well and we were both very excited to see our old floor coming back together. We were a bit afraid that we’d run out of planks, but we had enough. During the last small section I took some long boards to the porch to trim. The saw was set up so the ends of the long boards could be inside the house and give us enough room. I had closed the front door to make room for Nick to use the nailer and thought I had re-opened it. But when I took a long piece from the porch, trimmed one end and then moved it toward the house, I hit the front door and put a small dent in the wood. Having spent numerous hours and agony making sure that the varnish on the door was just right, I was devastated.

It really isn’t that bad, and it didn’t break through the varnish, but the door was no longer perfect. Being tired and ready to be done with the project, I kicked off my shoes and tearfully exclaimed, “I quit for now”. I went upstairs and took a nap and returned later to find the floor complete.

(Thank you, Nick!)