The demolition: plus Why Cork Flooring?




Mom's nails (the other kind) on the tile pre-demo

 

So we just jumped right into ripping up the carpet in the basement space.  This is a long, narrow space we've never used for a few reasons: 1, the carpet was nasty. 2, we had no furniture down there, and weren't going to purchase any to go on top of nasty carpet. 3, it was cold; but our new heat pump installer opened up a vent down there and it's magical: we have heat!


 This has always been a space we just travel by between the garage and the steps up into the "real"house where we live.  On occasion we'll have kids over and they go down there to place a bit, but it wasn't much to rave about.

We knew we didn't want to replace the carpet.  We looked at wood, but decided it was too hard and too cold for our tastes.  Tile is too hard and cold; I brought home a few samples of laminates (woods and cork) and we fell in love with the cork (well, it won by a 2/3 vote). 

We like it for a few reasons: 

•  It's soft, it's warm underfoot,
•  it has character and works in a "fun" room.
•   It's durable and will hold up under a group of young boys playing ball, wii, tackle or nerf battle fun that it can see; it can handle it.
•   It's easy to install (so I hear, I'll have to fill you in on that next week!). 
  It's green and a renewable resource
• 

So: The to-do list before the flooring can be installed:

1. Finish removing the tile and grout at the bottom of the steps;
2. Take carpet to dump;
3. Remove carpet from steps and prep for paint;
4. Clean out the "stuff" in the basement, find a home for it during the install or get rid of it 
5. Pick up flooring (dh opted to pick it up as opposed to delivery fee; I would have not!
6. Let the flooring "air out" and adjust to the temp and humidity in the room for 72 hours;
7. Lay down underlayment and moisture barrier
8. Install!

I can't wait! I'm so excited to get going, a tad nervous, but not nearly as nervous as when I was building the treehouse.  That kept me up at night; this is just exciting. 


PS: Oh: #9: add in "take care of sick boy" which really, as we all know, is #1.  So that will affect the schedule this week of course. 

Oh...do you want to see what we picked out?

Here it is!  Details later.  I'm hoping we can keep the color I picked out for the basement, but everything is pending at this point. 








PS: I always find it interesting to see what words aren't recognize in the spell check: Today includes "wii" and "nerf"!