Floor Plan
The aquarium dominoes continue.
We finally made the decision to refinish the hardwood floor Shortly after that we made the decision to paint the remaining rooms (those not recently painted already) when all the furniture is out.
Yes, out. In order to refinish the floor, there can't be furniture sitting on it. I see it beginning to register in your mind. The whole house? Yep, pretty much. Anywhere there is hardwood floor needs to be empty. For HexHouse, that's everything except the kitchen and the two bathrooms. Hard to imagine, isn't it?
I called several floor repair/refinish folk in the phone book and set up estimate times with them. One by one, they came over and inspected my newly naked floor.
Each one was different. The first guy did nothing but complain about his workload. How much he wanted to retire, how hard the work was, how much time he spent away from home.
And he didn't measure my closets, which are also hardwood-floored.
The second guy's answering machine says "God bless" which put me in his favor instantly. After dealing with the first guy, I was leaning toward him even more. By the time he'd finished his estimate, I was in love.
This guy would do a good job. This guy would take care to treat my floor the way he'd treat his own.
And this guy did measure my closets.
I checked with Harry for his thoughts, and called the guy. "Yes," I told him, "sign us up." The third guy called to set up an estimate time and I told him I'd already found someone.
The aquarium shop called to inform me that my 125-gallon aquarium and all associated equipment had arrived. Ack!
However, now I could plan. We had a floor guy, we knew what we needed to do . . . or did we? I suddenly realized I was full of questions. How much of the closets did we need to empty? How much time would we need to let the floor "cure?" Could we paint and not put down drop cloths since they'd be sanding the floor anyway?
I tried to contact my floor man to ask these questions, and got "God blessed" again by the answering machine. When the company called me back, it was with bad news: they'd lost a couple of guys and couldn't schedule my floors until December.
Well, we couldn't wait that long, even for someone I was sure would do an excellent job. Since the first guy was out of the question, I called the third guy back. I told their answering machine that my first guy had fallen through and I did, after all, need an estimate. (They still haven't called me back. Are you surprised?)
Time for the next town's book. I pulled out the phone book from one town over and began calling floor repair/refinish folk there. Two estimates and another non-response later, we've chosen another floor man.
The last few days have been spent boxing up my house. Making lists. Agonizing over questions like "where will the cat go?" and "which books should I leave unboxed?" It's happy work, though, and I have visions of unpacking "the right way" when our stuff comes back. (Yeah, that'll happen.)
In two weeks, everything leaves the house. Two days later we'll be hosting a Painting Party.
I wonder . . . will the floor guys use any water when they're here? I imagine by then our water poltergeist, H-2-Uh-Oh, might be getting rather lonely.
Copyright 2013 Michelle Hakala
http://www.winebird.com/
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