Barnmouse Blitherings

We’re pulling up the carpet in my office and putting down hardwood-ish floors. They’re not the real $7 a square foot hardwood floors, but they’re scratch-resistant and easy to install (kinda) and (most importantly) in our price range. That last one was the highest priority since we’re not only putting them down in my office, but in Computer Guy’s office and our bedroom too. We’ve already put them down in the guest room and in the hallway upstairs. Downstairs has the real fancy schmancy hardwood floors so at least we don’t have to do that.

On the box of the strips of interlocking faux hardwood floors, it says in ginormous letters “EASY LOCK”. Umm….no. In their commercial on tv, with time-lapse cameras of course, the ever-smiling couple puts the whole floor together in no more than an hour. They never break a sweat, or let their smiles fade. They never have to rip apart two rows of the floor because they don’t meet up right. They never have to whip out the trusty jigsaw. They’re not covered in sawdust. And their definitely not glaring at each other after 10 minutes and muttering under their breath.

So…*I* moved everything out of my office (including my giant closet that I loved up until the very moment that I peeked inside and realized that I had to move everything out of it), and then *I*pulled up all the carpet and the naaaasty carpet padding…….

….and then *I* (are you seeing a pattern here? yeah….we had a little tiff….it all started with me bringing him something cold to drink since my office gets really hot during the day…he suddenly blows up and says something along the lines of “fine, why don’t you just do it all then?”…and me, never being one to back down, said “FINE!!!”) hmm…where was I again?….oh yeah….and then *I* pulled up the at least hundred million jillion staples that the idiots that built this house used to keep the padding in place….like the gawd-awful powder blue carpet wouldn’t have held it down? Then, of course, came the prying off of the base board (oh how I loath the base board….many years has base board been my arch enemy…I am plotting my revenge…), and then the banging out of the stooopid weirdass nails that they use to attach the evil base board. Nails aren’t supposed to turn themselves into “S” shapes! Grrr! So then, *I* (yes, still just *I*) scrapped off caulk and painted-on carpet (what?!).

Somehow, pulling up the carpet and replacing it with the hardwood floors has turned into installing a ceiling fan, reshimming both closet doors and the door to the office, sanding and repainting baseboard, painting window trim, touching up the ceiling, replacing blinds, and possibly looking for a new desk.

*whew*

Just talking about it makes me need to lie down.