Reflooring Day 2

Since I'm taking so many photos with my phone, it's actually easier to get them into the blog (thank you Google) so hopefully the updates will keep coming in a timely manner.

This morning I took a trip to Home Depot to pick up some pliers (and fabric, haha) and came back to help with more demolition. I sat on a stool and pulled up staples while Eric pulled off more molding and eventually moved into the kitchen to pull up the floor there.

The kitchen is what worried me. We had surface evidence of water damage at the corner of the fridge, where the water is and on the floor below where the drinking water is from the sink/corner of the dishwasher.  The floor was buckling by the dishwasher, but was rotted by the fridge.

First step was pulling out the fridge to see if we could move it into the dining room.

That was a no go unless we went through the living room, but we did get the water line disconnected with no flooding! And cleaned up the massive amounts of dirt and dust. 

The cardboard backing behind the fridge showed evidence that this fridge saw water damage.  

The floor damage.

Apparently, this is what our dining room USED to look like. Excuse me while I go vomit.

Kaylee, of course, insisted on helping, and actually did a good job, if slow, on removing the baseboard!

She also took a purple marker to the walls. So she learned about cleaning up after herself and I thanked the Crayola gods for making an extremely washable marker.

The gas stove has been disconnected and we discovered to our glee that the luon did not go under the stove. THANK GOODNESS. 

Water damage to the luon from by the fridge

With the subfloor revealed our hearts started sinking. We hadn't seen evidence from below of water damage, but there was a DENT in the subfloor from the corner of the fridge. It was looking more and more like we needed to have subfloor replaced. And that this project was becoming bigger than expected. 

So tomorrow I will be calling some contractors to come out and give me an estimate. We need to determine how much of a pain replacing this will be and additionally whether or not our subfloor can withstand the weight of the ceramic tile. Otherwise we may need to completely replace the subfloor.

Joy.

Today has been crazy warm, in the mid 50sF  and the snow is a-melting away.  Our stream has a current for once.

And my barn is flooding. But thankfully not where the hay is and not in the stalls, so it's manageable. But just more reason to keep our plans for spring/summer outdoor projects a go. The drainage obviously needs to be managed and fixed so this doesn't continue to occur. 

In House work!

With our tax return safe in our bank account, we turned to focusing on home improvement that we believed we could do ourselves. At first, I was really pushing for a pro-install until I got the quote back. Suddenly DIYing the flooring again was worthwhile. We like to buy quality products, but we hesitate to spend when we (i.e. Eric) know we can do just as good a job, even if it takes a little bit longer.

We had picked out an expensive tile, but prior to ordering it Eric checked out one final tile store and we found something for less than half the cost that we still liked (just not... loved, lol)

You can see the tile samples below. The grout color we picked is the lower option. 

On Monday last week, Kaylee and I bought the tile and had it packed in the truck (around 200 lb over capacity, oops) and drove it home. Eric unloaded it into the garage.  

You can also see the hydroton, which will be for the aquaponics!

Today marked demolition day!  We cleared up the breakfast nook, which mainly consisted of me sadly repacking all of my books after FINALLY getting them on the shelves in an organized manner and moving the bookcases to the rest of the living room. I am not unpacking the books because we're still planning on reflooring the living room so I'd have to move the damn bookcases all over again.

Much to our surprise, we found that the hardwood was -glued- down. We were expecting nail down. Not only was it glued though, it was glued onto luon.  Now, anyone who's ever done set construction for theatre knows what luon is. It's incredibly thin particle board that's great for making backdrops. We suspect that the luon was used to bring this new flooring to the same height as the different hardwood in the dining room.

Anyway, so hardwood strip glued to luon and the luon was stapled to the subfloor. Ah staples, my nemesis! Once we realized that it was 4'x8' sheets of luon, Eric busted out the circular saw and set the depth to only the floor+luon and proceeded to cut the thing into pieces! The subfloor remained undamaged!

One huge sheet of luon + hardwood glued atop

Kaylee of course, helped where she was able. 

We got a lot done for a day's work. The morning was spent cleaning and clearing. The early afternoon was running shopping errands 

Home Depot for thin set, a special drill bit, and wall hanging paraphenalia, Tractor Supply for shavings for the barn, Ace Hardware/Vinckier for bulkhead fittings (for aquaponics and rain barrels), crowbar, mallet and milk (It's a combo hardware/grocery, lol, yay farm community!) And the afternoon for destruction!

We got the reading nook and hallway to the garage cleared of floor but we still have to pull up the staples. That's going to take needlenose pliars which we strangely can't find. I suspect they were left in Washington because that's basically the last thing I was doing before we moved. Fitting since a year ago today is when the mover's left with our belongings and I was alone in WA with Kaylee getting the house prepped to sell. One of my big projects was removing carpeting and, you guessed it, the accompanying staples.

We will see if my push to just buy a new pair wins out over my mother in law telling us to drive two hours roundtrip to her house and get her pair of pliars. That's time we could be spending demolishing!

Gwyn knows how I feel about that.  ;)

Some days, I feel like I have super powers

Especially being pregnant.

With my first, I moved Gwyn out of a self care boarding barn near the middle of my pregnancy to a full care barn that had great turn out (and nearly nothing else, but I loved that place)

Now, with Gwyn at home and nearing the end of my pregnancy, I feel empowered by the knowledge that I am still getting my chores done every day. It might wipe me out, but my animals are not lacking for care.

We're having another winter storm, hopefully the last one of significance for this winter before it really starts to thaw. The wind is blowing snow straight into the stalls so I bundled Gwyn up in a blanket with attached neck cover. I got this at a tack yard sale for super cheap. It's an 82" but I'm not sure it actually fits. I think it's too small, OH NO.. LOL!  It'll due for a night, though, at least until the storm passes.

You got treats?

FEED ME, EVEN THOUGH I JUST HAD MY GRAIN

You can see the snow!

In places it's up over the tops of my boots, which come up to mid calf on me. School has already been canceled for tomorrow.

Farewell Arwen!

But do not be sad! This isn't a sad post!

I made the decision to rehome Arwen. She's only 10 minutes away, living with a very lonely black quarter horse. She will get much better attention there than I can give her. Additionally, I was starting to be worried about her behavior around Kaylee.

When you start to see herd dynamics negatively affecting human children, things need to change. I can interfere as much as possible, but the fact is if the animal does not consider a human above them in the herd order, then situations can become dangerous. As big as Gwyn is, she treats my daugher like porcelain and will defer to her and is very careful when they are in the pasture together. Saffron is more apathetic about my daughter. She pretty much ignores her, and that is also safe, in my mind. Arwen would push my daughter around. As a 3 year old human child, she doesn't quite understand the behavior correction that needs to occurr to prevent that. And I can correct it every time I see it but if a correction never comes when I'm not around to see it, then my actions aren't going to have the same effectiveness.

So when I saw someone looking for a companion donkey, I offered Arwen. The family came out to meet them on Saturday and had decided by monday that they wanted her. They brought their mare home a month ago and noticed that the mare was lonely (much like I had noticed with Gwyn). I delivered Arwen last night. She loaded relatively easily with food bribes and hopped off after a short trailer ride to her new home. She met her new buddy and they seemed to hit it off from what I saw.

Saffron was somewhat upset but I'm hoping she'll adjust. There was more concerning behavior between the two that also drove me to this decision.  Saffron has been mounting Arwen as though they were mating. Arwen still tries to nurse. Separation is likely a good thing. Saffron and Gwyn are still together, of course.  And now today things seem to have settled down so I'm feeling better about the whole thing.