Day-4 Heat Flooring

On day four the tile crew added more leveling compound and put down the heat coils for a floor heating system. It was critical that we stay off the floor at this point for 24 hours.

When the oldest got up for school, we had him move the stuff he would need for the next two days upstairs. This included his shampoo, body wash, and contact paraphernalia, since our second full bath is in the basement. We were also busy washing and drying clothes the night before so that no one would run out. Yes, the washer and dryer are in the basement too. The cat's litter box and food are in the laundry room so those items had to come upstairs to the hall bathroom. We figured that we'd have to be off the floor for a couple of days.

Doug had made a blockade across the doorway with the garbage can and the rubbermaid foot stool. This was to keep the dog from entering the kitchen. The cat had to be locked up in a bedroom and/or the hall bathroom for the day. After school we took Sala out as long as we could keep an eye on him.


In this picture you can almost see the wires for the heating system embedded into the leveling compound. Can you see what looks like little lines drawn across the wet cement? Those are the heating coils.


Well into the evening these were still areas that were very wet. On the right side of the picture you can see wires sticking out from the wall. This is where the thermostat for the floor will be installed.


Doug and I left to go to the store. We left three kids up stairs with the dog and cat. We told them to keep and eye on the beasts and not let them get into the kitchen. As you can see the babysitting/supervision was lacking.

Day 3- New Floor

On this day they laid the concrete backer board. I think that is what it's called. I love HGTV. I know just enough to the dangerous. I'm sure the home improvement store personnel can spot us a mile away.

Anyway, the sub-flooring was laid and we were still able to move about the kitchen. We could even microwave things. We actually had more floor access than the day before.


This should begin to look familiar.


Yea, we can access the backyard from the house.

Day 2- New Floor

The workers came bright and early. They removed the lower cabinets, stove, broken dishwasher, sink, baseboards, and began working on the floor. They were going to remove all but the last layer of flooring from the kitchen. We had three layers.

The top layer was a whitish vinyl with a small tile-like pattern. This was what we were use to. The middle layer looked like a red brick vinyl floor. The last layer was an off white speckled with gold flecks vinyl floor. Most of this floor stayed. There is an area near the middle of the room where under the house the ground meets the basement. This area was not level so the off-white speckled floor was removed form that section.

A leveling compound was poured on the floor as the prep work for the tiles.


This picture was taken from the top of the basement stairs. All the appliances and lower cabinets are gone.


This picture was taken from the dining room into the kitchen. Luckily at this stage we were still able to get into the kitchen to go into the basement and even go into the garage. We were cut off from the sliding glass door and the backyard.

New Floor

In December we had to replace or garage door system. After six years of fixing broken springs, wheels, the button by the wall, etc, we had had it when the door quit opening or was opening spontaneously in the middle of the night. We replaced the wooden rotting door with a insulated energy efficient door and bought a whole new electronic door opening system. We even got a key pad entry.

Then in January we began contemplating replacing our kitchen floor. Well our sliding glass door finally rotted out this winter. Doug stuffed a towel in the crack and we had to walk the dog out the front door and around the side of the house so the dog could get in the back yard.

At this time we got our neighbor, a contractor, over to replace the door. He also priced out a new floor for us as well. Doug and I took the plunge and began a one month hunt for tile. I of course though we'd walk into the home improvement store tell them what we wanted and they would be able to show us the exact thing and off we'd go. Oh No!!

We search and search for the right tan tiles and texture. Doug and I had to compromise on this as I wanted more dramatic color variation and lots of texture. He wanted less of both. Of course price was a issue. We found one great tiles right away but it would blow our budget. I was so proud of myself that I was determined to stay within our allotted tile budget. So a month later we were still shopping.

I was also looking for a small solid colored tile to insert in the corners of the large tiles for visual interest. This proved to be incredibly difficulty. Finally at the first of the four shops we visited, we finally found tiles that would work.

It took a full week to redo the floor. We were out of the kitchen for a week. For two days we had no access to the area and couldn't go into the basement (where the oldest sleeps, bathes, recreates) or to the garage or the backyard for dog potty purposes. Well we didn't have access to the garage all week because the contractor supplies, stove, cabinets, etc were stored in the garage.

See what our home looked like.

This is Sunday night. Doug and I cleared out the refrigerator, china cabinet, table & chairs, baker's rack and all the items in the lower cabinets.

I forgot to mention that from early January till March 17th we had no baseboards, framing, or curtains around our sliding glass door. Our contractor planned on replacing those items after the new floor was put in.

Here is the refrigerator in the dining/computer room. To the right you can see the edge of the kitchen table. We took off the legs and leaned the table top against the book shelf.

That's all for now Day 2 - Day 7 coming up later.

Spring Break

I know it has been a long time since I've blogged. Things have been busy here; more than usual. For four of the five of us spring break was a quiet time at home. I didn't go into work once during spring break (Yea!!).

I did spend my time packing up our kitchen for our floor remodeling job. I also worked on Doug's 40th birthday album that our dog chewed up several years ago. I believe she did this five years ago. I just now have let it go so that I could redo the album. I'm into modern times. Although as I reflect on this statement I realize that that is not exactly true. I finished adding our wedding photos and although it seems like yesterday and forever at the same time; it has been 20 years.