One of the biggest tasks so far has been getting a solid floor under our feet. We moved onto bare concrete floors, which — although crude — was quite nice as we didn’t have to remove old flooring. There was still mastic on the floors, so it took a lot of prep which involved Bean-e-doo and — in the end — a wet grinder. The grinder was nice to ensure the high-spots were taken down a bit. We rented this from Cresco for about $150/day.

We contracted with Abbey Carpet/Contra Costa Floors for the installation. We chose black Armstrong Excelon tile (VCT) for installation though the whole house (save the bathrooms which will have black unglazed tiles)… about 1800 square-feet in total. The price — installed — ran about $4500. A quote from Anderson Carpet ran a few thousand more which made the choice easier.

Fernando and his crew did an excellent job and it took about a day-and-a-half to install. We moved everything into the garage (including us) for the preparation. We also removed all of the baseboards and some of the door frames so that they could carry the flooring all the way to the edges (which will hopefully eliminate any blank spots later on). The overall fit was quite nice — and, with the black, hopefully easier to hide the seams.

We really like our new floors and look forward to sealing them after we do a bit more of the dusty work.

Casie’s father, Dan, stopped by (from Virginia) a few weeks ago to lend a much appreciated  hand on the project.

From installing a pocket door in the master bath and helping to reframe the closet before the flooring went in (the previous owners widened the passage for walker access), the extra pair of hands were priceless.

Thanks, Dan…

In the continuing saga of: "Things you find behind other things…":

Marty seems to like the dirt.

… in all forms. methinks. Especially when glued to a concrete slab. Especially when you want it gone.

This was the wort part of the flooring removal. We finally succeeded by scoring the vinyl with a blade and soaking the surface with a Methyl-Chloride-based stripper, then scraping with a blade.

You know you’ve would up in the right place when:

1: On a recent trip to Sam’s Club, a random guy hands you a coupon for free pizza… then a week later, he walks by the open garage door with his partner and dog (ends up, they’re neighbors). They invited us to a pot-luck the following week which was fantastic and we got to meet some more wonderful new neighbors (thanks again, Mauri and Stacey).

2: Another neighbor brings you a home-made peach pie made with peaches from the garden… it was delicious.