Remember my perfect carpet? The expensive Karastan I chose on day one…
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The salesperson from the store where I found it (they have exclusive rights to the brand and none of the other places we’ve tried can sell it) has been staying in touch after giving us an installation estimate. When I finally told them my husband balked at the price and was looking around for something comparable but cheaper, they wanted to help and said they would check their inventory.
I received this message a week ago.. but didn’t tell my husband until he’d had his fill of fruitless floor shopping.
I’m evil that way.
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To be honest I didn’t think carpet was something you could barter… but you live and you learn.
Work resumed in the crap filled dungeon cellar the other day and more ceiling panels were installed…. with one glaring difference.
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I wasn’t assisting.
After the last bout of me trying (and failing) to hold a sheet a plywood in place over my head while the husband drilled …. replacement help was enlisted in the form of my husband’s cousin.
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This is a completed section with ceiling, insulated walls and shelving. Not that you can see much of it through the solid mass of worthless crap treasure.
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This is an uncompleted section, and if you look closely you can see the husband on a ladder surrounded by his ridiculous amount of junk treasures.
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Funny part is his cousin turned out to be a pretty useless assistant. He was always in the way and actually dropped a piece of plywood on my husband’s head.
Our new flooring is (90%) done so I thought you might like to see a few before and afters.
Keep in mind the before shots don’t show how truly terrible and worn out the old Berber carpet really was.
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Before.
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After.
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Before.
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After.
(With a gaping hole on the upper right waiting for the new dining room set to arrive.)
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Before.
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After.
With the same empty space on the left.
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Before.
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After.
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Another after from the empty dining space.
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Some of these after pictures don’t do it justice as the true color is hard to capture. It’s not as dark as it looks in some and has a much warmer tone in person.
Replacing the trim around our new bedroom windows was painful. We tried multiple types and colors of stain but never really came close to matching the existing. The only saving grace there was the new pieces didn’t lay against the old and with distance there’s room for variation.
Not so this new living room flooring project. New baseboard had to butt up to old at the two kitchen entrances and the hallway… not to mention the fireplace and built in bookcases.
It was a major challenge.
The husband and I made three trips to three different stores and bought three different colors but nothing worked.
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The piece on the left is what we needed to match. Most never came close. And mind you baseboard moulding is sold by the foot so every test piece that fails?
Ka-Ching! 💰
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We had to stain over 100 feet and I wanted it to look nice.
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Three more stores, three more rejects. I couldn’t understand it, we’d bring in my sample piece and match it perfectly to theirs only to find it wasn’t close when we got home and applied it.
Then we went to Sherwin Williams. Turns out they’ve bought the Minwax company… and guess what?
They can color match stain.
What!!! Why did no one ever tell me this was possible?
They also told us the reason we could never match our color was because all the store samples are done on oak and baseboard moulding is typically pine.
What!! Why did no one ever tell me this?
After stifling my anger at the stain industry, we purchased a can of perfectly tinted stain and happily started the process.
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Have finger, will travel.
Yes, the stain looks red but when gently applied with a rag and my forefinger instead of heavy handing it with a brush, it was almost perfect.
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Sadly my old Grateful Dead tee shirt gave its life to the cause.
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Two coats of stain, two coats of amber poly and one giant air bubble in the plastic later, we were done.
And since my husband is retired again … (did I mention that? He went back to work for 6 months but decided to call it quits for good this time. Or so he says)… our contractor has put him to work with the time consuming annoying jobs.
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Like pulling out all the little pieces of old carpet trapped under the frame of the brickwork.
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So many little pieces.
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Of that horrible dusty rose crap that’s still in our bedroom.
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Its removal will be the next project we tackle after this one.
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If this one is ever finished that is.
And because you know nothing goes smoothly here…
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See the threshold piece wrapped in plastic on the right? See how it matches the flooring? There should have been 3 tubes of that, we got 1.
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The other 2 tubes looked like this.
Not even close… which means another delay and annoyance while we wait for the store to replace it.
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Furry inconvenience?
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We’ve got that too as Lord Dudley Mountcatten has developed a fascination with power tools.
😉
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 