See “Aloha” indicates both “Goodbye” as well as “Hello,” so… yeah… buh bye Hawaii as well as hey there half-done cork floors. We’re back in Richmond (insert required interest right here – woot?) as well as we’re excited to tell you a lot more about our trip. however we’re a lot more excited to dive back into diy as well as spill all the details about our huge cork floor job that we started ideal before we left (about twenty four hours before we hopped on the airplane actually). Oh as well as for those who didn’t decrease in on us last week considering that our bit holiday announcement, we really did share two articles (along with a giveaway) while we were gone, so you can discover those right here as well as here.

We’re still recuperating from jet lag (and from flying house on a red-eye with a toddler, haha – we’ll share a lot more on that over on young home Life at some point) however we’re extremely grateful for our bit break to unplug as well as take pleasure in some sun as well as sand. So we’ll just update you on as much of the flooring as we’ve laid (and keep working the nights away up until it’s done as well as we can do a full expose publish for ya!). Oh as well as we’ll compose all about our HI adventures when we have time to kind with about two thousand pictures as well as compose all about it – ideally by the end of this week. however back to the floors. We had originally really hoped to totally surface the floors before we left. That was the plan…

We understood the picture team would surface up on Friday the 17th after three full weeks of shooting in our home (we understood much better than to try juggling book shoots + young child + new floors, so we believed waiting up until the book shooting wrapped was the very best idea). So considering that we didn’t leave for Portland up until early on Tuesday morning (the 21st) that indicated we’d have Saturday as well as Sunday to set up the floors while Clara napped/was in bed for the night. then on Monday we’d pack, surface up/proofread all the articles for the complying with week that we’d share while in Portland, as well as get prepared to leave on Tuesday am. seemed perfect… ’til we realized on Friday night that we hadn’t let the cork boards acclimate OUT of their boxes for the suggested 48 hours. Cue the noise of a balloon deflating.
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Yup, they had sat in the corner of our bedroom in their boxes for months (months!) considering that we bought them in October from Lumber Liquidators on clearance. however we hadn’t taken them out to acclimate in all of that time. So sad. We just didn’t even believe about it. So the above picture depicts the scene in our home on Saturday as well as Sunday while we actually waited for those people to acclimate with bated breath. nothing got installed over the entire weekend. It just sat there… acclimating (i.e. adjusting to the temperature of the home so any type of growth or contracting would occur before putting them in location instead of after- which can make them buckle as well as warp).

The last minute wait-time did provide us a couple of days to checked out up on the process, though. We’ve never installed a floor like this, so we referenced how-tos such as this as well as this to get our heads in floor mode. Oh, as well as we were able to get a few of the floor prepped in the meantime, like prying off all of the shoe molding around the room. considering that ours is painted over, we utilized a razor to slice the paint so it would come off cleanly without peeling. With a floating floor you really have to leave a space around the edges (our cork packaging suggested a 5/16″ of an inch space) to provide it space to broaden or contract with modifications in temperature. however when the shoe is reinstalled after the cork goes down it’ll cover that gap.

Another thing we had to do was trim the door molding to fit the new cork flooring. considering that it’d be a pain in the behind to cut the floors completely around every groove in the molding, I discovered exactly how to cut a sliver out of the molding instead (so the cork floor might slide ideal under it for a seamless look). I utilized one of the methods that I checked out about where you lay a hand saw flat against a piece of floor (and underlayment) as your guide as well as just saw away. seemed kinda crazy…

…but it worked!

Once we had all of the shoe removed, the door moldings cut to fit the cork that will run under them, as well as all of the shifts pried up in the doorways, the floor was officially prepped. Oh yeah, as well as we provided it a great sweep too.

Then when the 48 hour acclimation time was up as well as the floors were cleaned, the next step was putting down the underlayment. This is the stuff that Lumber Liquidator’s recommended:

There was a somewhat more affordable option, however that a person wasn’t made of recycled material (boo) as well as it was somewhat thicker (and we desired the added floor height to be as very little as possible considering that we had to float it over our existing flooring instead of eliminating the old vinyl because of the existence of an asbestos liner under it). Thankfully the cork is thin too, so when it’s all stated as well as done the cork floor must only be able a quarter of an inch higher than the hardwoods around it, as well as with some great smooth low-lying shifts it shouldn’t produce any type of frustrating toe-stubbing or baby-tripping. We’ll keep you published on taking care of those shifts as we get there.

Ok, so being that it was now Monday morning (i.e. less than 24 hours before we left on an 11 day service / enjoyment trip), we were scrambling a bit – so our photos aren’t as complete as we’d like. We’ll do much better as we surface up the floors this week (by taking a heap a lot more photos) considering that we won’t be distracted by book photoshoots, cleaning, packing, as well as Portland-presentation-practicing. however here’s a pic that I snapped when we got the underlayment mainly down in one side of the space (it had a sticky strip on the back of it keep it in place). The underlayment doesn’t overlap itself, it is just laid in strips ideal next to every other as well as stuck to the floor keeping that sticky strip that runs down the side of it. Oh as well as you can see exactly how I just utilized a routine scissors (not Sherry’s great scissors since I understand what’s great for me) to cut out the underlayment that overlapped the stone fireplace surround (a box cutter likewise worked well).

To assist with the actual floor installation, we gotten this $16 set from house Depot. It came with spacers (to keep that suggested 5/16″ space around the edge), in addition to a pull bar as well as a tapping block. Those are both to assist hammer the boards into place, however considering that you don’t want to hammer the board directly you utilize the block as a buffer (you hammer the block which somewhat shifts the board so there’s not a huge gap/seam). as well as the pull bar assists with the boards closest to the wall. I’ll take pics of these in action next time so this makes a lot more sense. Promise.

The process was quite sluggish going at first, generally since nearly all of our very first few pieces needed cuts. however at least it was great to get them out of the way.

Some of the directions I checked out suggested cutting with a jigsaw, however I figured my table saw would make straighter cuts so I lugged it as much as the carport to make my lots of (many) cuts a lot more convenient. It worked truly well.

Even after we got around the fireplace, we still had to cut the board at the begin of each row (or “course” to utilize flooring lingo). We staggered each row/course since (1) it makes the whole floating floor stronger by offsetting the joints as well as (2) it makes it look a lot more like a standard hardwood floor. My boards were 36″ long, so we balance out the programs by 12″ each. See the staggered edge below?

Even with those preliminary staggered cuts, it was quite quick snapping in a whole row of whole pieces. In other words: cuts took a great deal longer, as well as snapping whole pieces in was a breeze. I believe all-in-all this whole section took us about five hours to do. We really hoped to get a lot more performed in that time (our preliminary goal had been to surface the whole behind-the-peninsula section of the kitchen area before leaving) however we got distracted by a morning snowstorm, a lunchtime wrap-up satisfying with the book photographer, as well as ultimately got caught up trying to pack for Portland as well as Hawaii (packing for ourselves took ten minutes, however packing for Clara took a bit longer – as well as our flight was so early on Tuesday we couldn’t leave anything for that morning).

But as Sherry pointed out on Friday, having the floor started only makes it much easier to get it completed this week. So our new goal is to have photos of a completed floor by the end of the week (we’re really gunning for completing Wednesday night or extremely early Thursday morning so we can have the pics up on time for a Thursday morning post). We’ll be sure to take a long time to snap much better pictures of the actual process as well (imagine that!). now that we’ve done around 30% of the floor (we’re doing the laundry space too) it shouldn’t be as well hard. Wait, were those popular last words? We’ll just leave it at: we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll get ‘er done!

What have you people been as much as lately? I’m not one to get all mushy, however we missed you people last week. any type of flooring jobs going on? Do you like to leave the home completely clean before embarking on a huge trip or begin something as well as leave it half-done to greet you when you return?

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