We put down an area rug in the room.

I’m hoping this will protect the flooring somewhat. Since installing, we’ve incurred a few scratches, mostly due to people wearing shoes (tracking in grit) and vacuuming. We no longer vacuum but sweep, and I’m still working on the tracking of grit.

The flooring is, overall, still in good condition. The drier winter weather causes the flooring to shrink a little, which is good. Over the summer, the humidity made the boards swell so much that a few started to buckle (it was barely noticeable but I noticed). We’d left plenty of space around the perimeter of the room as the manufacturer instructed, too, so the swelling was surprising. I think the differences between the bargain brands and the name brands are due in part to how much the boards swell. So if you use the bargain brands, leave a lot more space around the perimeter, even more than is specified in the instructions. Baseboards will cover the gaps.

I really like the color of the flooring. In the winter, when we’re inside all the time, it’s great to have things look cozy as well as be cozy. The flooring color is tawny and warm, very nice.

So so far I am happy with the laminate. It had cost us over $400 for materials for a 15′ x 17′ room. I think it’s been worth it so far.

Most of the homes I’ve lived in had forced air heating systems. I dislike them greatly. They create drafts and the house never seems warm. There is a ton of dust. And if you have an odor in one end of the house, within one minute of that furnace kicking on, it’s permeated the house. I dislike forced-air systems very much.

I’ve lived in a few places with radiator heating. All places were very old apartments with very old radiators. I didn’t care for the radiator system, either. If you were within five or six feet of the radiator, you’d be warm. But radiators didn’t radiate very much.

I’ve lived in a house with a wood furnace (far to much work) and electric baseboard heating (far too expensive and noisy).

I’ve watched with interest the introduction of radiant heating to this country. Radiant heating is not “new.” It’s been established in Europe for a long time.

In the 70′s here in this country, radiant heating was added to ranch houses with concrete slab foundations. It was not very well thought through when it was introduced in modern homes. Radiant tubing of copper pipes was placed in the subfloor, and a fresh coat of concrete poured over it all. Hot water from a boiler flowed through the pipes and warmed the floors. It was a lovely idea. But you cam’t stop physics. The exchange of hot and cool temperatures causwed the pipes to shift a little. Concrete doesn’t like shifting. Pipe seals broke, leaked into cracked concrete, and before you know it, it’s a disaster. Not only have you lost your heating system, but you’ve lost your floor.

So I’ve watched and waited. I’ve seen the introduction of PEX tubing to the idea. I like PEX tubing, but I have my doubts if it would really work here in Upstate New York. It gets cold, bone cold here for long periods of time. And I’m not too keen on anything being “set in stone” or, in this case, concrete.

But radiant heating is extremely appealing. Heating with water has got to be the best means of heating anything, and water is doubly efficient because the same water you use to heat your rooms can be the same water you use to wash your dishes or take your bath. Radiant heating heats the floors, which in turn heats objects. No drafts, no exchange of one kind of air for another. You can also install hardwood flooring– usually a chilly option for homes in the North– and still stay warm. As a matter of fact, hardwood floors are recommended with radiant heating, because the wood doesn’t insulate the heat from the room, as a carpet would. It’s very appealing indeed.

You can even install radiant heating with PEX and aluminum flashing to existing homes. Although, I wouldn’t in my house. Older homes have a plethora of problems and situations unique to newer homes. The way my sill sits on my foundation, for example, and how my home’s framework is built (balloon frame). There are a lot of drafts within the foundation and between the sill-plate and wall-framing that I cannot access. The wood is old, it has shrunk, my basement is very drafty. I also have a century’s worth of pipes, drains, and wires protruding every-which-way. I couldn’t even begin to imagine where I’ve have the space to install radiant heating to the floor. Unless I ripped everything out to the house’s barebones and started from scratch. But then again, why do that? Just build new. So I really think that to install radiant heating right, you’d have to build new, with proper preparation and installation.

It’s an interesting system and one I intend to monitor for a little while longer. If I ever build a new house, I think I would choose radiant heating above all else. So far, I think it’s the best system out there. But even that makes me sad. That’s the best we have? We’ve been to the moon, sent a robot to Mars, and we still have a heating system that’s only one step advanced from the stone age?

Well. OK. I’ll break things down into a list: Pro and Con.

PRO:

1. It still looks beautiful. There’s nothing like the look of wood floors.. except wood floors themselves.
2. I’ve had to mop it only twice.
3. I see no indentations from the heavy furniture’s legs. I have a desk that is probably 300 pounds. I put flat casters under each leg, and the flooring has endured the weight extremely well.

CON:

1. There are a lot of small scratches everywhere. It wasn’t as durable as I’d hoped. We did buy the less expensive stuff (cheaper), but I had hoped it wouldn’t show scratches so soon. Our first time vacuuming, a little piece of grit got caught on the vacuum wheel, and made a large scratch. So we only sweep in here now. But the scratches are a major “con.” I am disappointed.
2. The floor boards have warped a little. Some are raised at the corners. Now, my house is so old, and we have drafts everywhere, so there are some major temperature extremes here. But I am surprised at how much the boards have expanded. A lot.
3. The floor bounces. The instructions for the flooring said to make sure your floor is “reasonably level.” I know that this is an impossible goal for a house as old as mine. But for laminate to look really good, your floor has to be far more than “reasonably” level. The slightest bump, it seems, shows up eventually as the boards contract and expand with the seasons. When we first installed the flooring, we had some bumps (I had nailed the old pine flooring down to secure it), but the laminate didn’t “rock.” Now, when we step in certain areas, the laminate rocks and gives a little. This also is probably due to the expansion and contraction of the boards.
4. Laminate flooring, while warmer than plain hardwood flooring, is much colder than carpeting. The floor is cold. No wonder they install radiant heating underneath. Brr!

So am I pleased with the flooring after these months? So far, yes. The scratches are minor (so far) and even so, we can still cover the floor with an area rug to protect the higher traffic areas. The bounce of the floor is irritating, and the raised edges are very irritating. But the floor is easy to care for and still looks pretty good. With more use (the Living Room is our most-used room of the house), I suspect that the raised edges will begin to chip or wear. This concerns me.

If we could have afforded carpeting and installation, I would have preferred that. We installed laminate because the materials were on sale and we could do it ourselves. Eventually, we will have carpeting in here, and perhaps use these boards for another room (if they are still useable).

Those little blocks all around the room are laminate flooring spacers. Laminate floor is a “floating floor,” which means it sits– all interlocked together– on the subfloor but not attached to it. It is important to leave spaces all around the perimeter of the room. The laminate expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity. If it does not have sufficient space to do so, the laminate will buckle.

I love the look of laminate. Walking on laminate is a luxurious experience, too– it is cushiony, since it sits on a foam underlayment. It is amazing to clean, too.

However, laminate scratches easily. Already I have found a few scratches, even though we have been very, very careful with furniture moving. I will have to invest in a laminate repair kit. We do intend to lay an area rug down. I also have to sew curtains (we are using old miniblinds right now, yuk).

There is no baseboard or window trim yet. I have to redo door jambs on the two doors first, then I will install the trim, a little at a time.

So there are a lot of loose ends! But it is wonderful to have my Living Room back. It is wonderful to have an organized desk with my printer and my pencils back. My ethernet cabling works fine, too. What a relief! Since installing that was so easy, I may install it in other rooms as well (when we get to them).

I am exhausted! The weeks of intense activity have tuckered me out! So we are taking a break from work today, before I continue with moulding installation and more rewiring (we are still without electricity in the upstairs Bathroom, the Hallway, and the Laundry Room).

I can’t even begin to explain how I did this job, it was so time-consuming and complicated. Cutting the metal with tin snips was the hardest part, I think. Also difficult was screwing in the sheet metal screws.

I do not consider my ductwork to be final. This is something I would truly like a professional to do. Working with metal, and that room by room, is enormously laborious. I had to do this room myself because the cost isn’t in the budget right now. I think I did a good enough job to last us a few years. By then I’ll probably hire my furnace guy to redo everything. Ductwork is pretty intense work. I have great respect for my furnace repairman.

I did not recycle as much of the old ducting as I wanted. This is mainly because the old ducting is 7-inch diameter. Modern measurements are 6- or 8-inch. I was in a real pickle, trying to make things match. I used a few adapters (6- to 7-inch) and I stuck with the flexible ducting. I suppose I could have bought all new 6-inch ductwork, but it would have cost a small fortune for this room.

Anyway, I think my adaptations are acceptable. I can rest easy that we are ready for winter now. The ducting is sealed good and tight. It is free from drafts and finally free from all those spiders making their nests in the holes.

Eventually I will install crown moulding, but not for a while. Therefore, I put extra effort into making the ceiling and wall seam look nice and neat. I think I pulled it off.

The room is finally electrified! I was a little anxious about the electrical work, honestly. It was my first electrical job (I have since done several areas now) and I was nervous about it. I splurged and bought a chandelier, and it looks beautiful. Twin sconces balance the symmetry of the windows. The room is very bright and looks great.

Since we cannot refinish the floors (they had been pained with lead paint in eons past), we decided to cover them with a “floating floor”: laminate flooring. Home Depot was having a clearance on Traffic Master laminate, so I nabbed numerous boxes.

We’ve got the foam underlayment installed, and two courses of the flooring. It is a learning experience for us. Every cut and the placement of every plank must be carefully thought through before you begin sawing boards.

Before we set the underlayment down, we drew a few things on the boards, for posterity.

The whole family and other helpers have signed the studs, too. I also placed a newspaper in the studs as a little time capsule.

The room is coming together. I am hoping we can get the flooring in by the weekend, and I also must finish the furnace ducting and the telephone/internet wiring done. There are a lot of loose ends.

My sweet husband told me he wanted to rent a drum sander for the floor. I was quite happy to use the little Black & Decker Sandstorm handsander, but he thought it would be too tedious and would take me too long. Use a drum sander for the big area, and my Sandstorm for the edging. And he volunteered to operate the drum sander! Sweet! So today, before calling the rental company, I thought I’d give my Sandstorm a try, to see how it would do.

I sanded a small area to practice. I was surprised to find dark green paint underneath the dark brown paint. I had thought the brown paint was original. Little red flags went up when I saw the green paint. It looked like very old porch paint. Better check it, I thought. I made a quick trip to Home Depot to buy one of those small lead testers. They are very handy– you crush two small tubes, shake the implement, and squirt a bit of yellow liquid out to moisten a swab. You rub the swab on the painted area, and if it remains yellow, you’re clear; if the swab turns pink, you’ve got lead. My swab turned dark red, almost purple. My heart sank.

I have to cover the floor. There is no way I can sand this stuff. Time for Plan B: laminate flooring. My husband agreed, so we are shelling out the bucks for laminate flooring. Home Depot has been having a clearance on the stuff, at 88 cents a square foot, so I can’t complain… I just didn’t want to spend any more money on this! Oh well, I do like laminate. But P.S. I spent $400 on materials for flooring, and then I had to pay $36 for TAX. Talk about theft!

Pictures to come. Tomorrow is sanding day, then I prime and paint for the rest of the week! The end is near!

The Outside Crew has been digging, digging, and digging. At 47 inches below grade, the rocks are smaller, but there are still plenty of them. The bigger kids are having a hard time getting down into the trench to dig, so the smaller guys take turns scooping dirt into a bucket. We hope that next week we will have our materials (rain barrel, PVC pipes) and do a dry run on our drywell system. The crew has done a marvelous job calculating the slope of the trench (1/4 inch per foot for a 23 foot run), and it looks good. Next week, we’ll test it out. If it works, we’ll lay the rocks and gravel, glue the PVC together, and fill in the trench. Yippee!

Here are the kids in the trench for a photo op.

Time for a funny picture:

The Inside Crew has removed all the plaster and lathe now (unless we suddenly decide to rip out more walls). Today, we removed the decrepit old carpeting, pad, and half of the underlayment to see the condition of the original pine flooring. We are not sure if we are going to refinish it so as to keep it exposed, or go with wall-to-wall carpeting. Can’t decide yet.

The floor, for its age (150 years) is in marvelous shape. I just can’t decide what to do yet. We like the warmth of carpet, but I hate to cover this nice wood. I do love wood floors. And keeping it wood would be much less expensive than w-w carpeting. Hmmm….

The Inside Crew has also completed the removal of that ugly half-wall that hung down from the ceiling. The wood and junk has been removed from all around the chimney, too.

Lots more to do, but ain’t progress wonderful?