Step 2: Lay New Flooring

Once all the old carpet was removed we started laying the foam underlay and then the new laminate flooring. It's a bit different in design from traditional laminate, in that it's narrower boards (only about 3") and there's actual grooves between the boards when they're installed. It actually really looks like wood floor, which is what I wanted. I hate how cheap traditional laminate looks and the tap-tap sound it makes when you walk across it so when we found this stuff I jumped on it. Saturday night we were up until midnight, running up the basement stairs and out to the garage to cut each piece but by the time we headed to bed, there were only 9 rows left. In the end, the whole job took about 12 hours for 2 of us. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be since it's basically double the work because the boards are narrower but the impact far outweighs the amount of work.

I must say, though, my knees, feet and hips sure were sore yesterday from all the stair climbing and lugging 30 pound boxes of flooring!

Step 1: Remove Old Carpet

True to my character, my nesting instinct has taken over at exactly 6 months pregnant. We went last weekend and bought new flooring for the basement rec room and started ripping out the carpet down there as soon as we were home. It had to be replaced eventually but this was a little sooner than we were planning, thanks to the cats. We suspect there was a cat (or 2) who lived here back in the day who used to pee on one spot in the corner. It was an issue when we first moved here, I did an enzyme treatment on that area and the cats ignored it after that and went back to using the litter boxes. Recently, when we've returned from a weekend away, we've found poo in another area of the rec room and once there's been pee there, too. I will not allow the kids to play in a space that isn't clean so the rec room has been off limits for the boys for weeks. We finally pulled the trigger and decided to do something about it.

Once the carpet was up, we saw that the underpad was all stuck to the subfloor because of the enzyme treatments we used (it was 3 litres of water we poured onto the carpet each time) so we had to work to scrape the crumbling underpad off. Then the subfloor underneath was damaged - and likely still had a bit of cat pee smell in it, though we couldn't smell it - so Craig replaced 2, 4X8 sheets of the plywood. It was a huge job and wouldn't you know it, the weekly garbage pick-up won't accept any of it so all that smelly old carpet is being stored in the garage until we arrange to bring it to the dump and pay a fee by weight to dispose of it. Lovely. Small sacrifices, I guess.

Playroom Improvements

I've been hankering to improve the setup of the playroom since we moved in. The toys have always been sort of in a mish mash on the floor under the table and we utilized the bottom shelf of the baker's rack for some of the larger things. Good thing I'm pretty organized, otherwise it would be a complete mess in there 24/7. I found some bedroom furniture online last week and finally went to check it out tonight after dinner. It was owned by a family whose teenage son has outgrown it, plus they're moving shortly and needed to pass it on. I got the complete set for $80 and now have terrific storage space in the playroom for all the boys toys. I'm just itching to get it all organized with baskets now!

Almost Walking

This week, Ian discovered how much fun it is to push something around the house while walking behind it. He first started with the kitchen chairs and then quickly graduated to pushing around Shaun's larger trucks. I felt bad that he was always bent over so I brought in a push toy from the outside toys and he hasn't turned back since, as you can see from the humungous grin on his face. He's able to stand on his own now for a few seconds without holding on to anything so I know that his first few shakey steps are only a few weeks away.

Let's all be honest with each other now though, isn't life easier with an immobile baby? I think back to the day when I didn't have to worry about always having a baby gate closed at the staircases and when I could leave the bathroom door open without worrying about a Beaner destroying yet another roll of toilet paper. All I had to do was plunk him on the floor with a basket of toys nearby and he was content to play for a half hour some days. Now he doesn't keep still for more than a moment before he's off exploring something else. They really do grow up too quickly.

Murderer

Boy, it seems like every time we start digging around in nooks and crannies of this house, we find a creature of some sort. Remember the skunk from back in the winter? I don't think I ever ended updating what happened with that little guy. Well, Craig ended up waiting until the shunk was out prowling one night and he blocked the entrance to the burrow with a cinder block. Craig went back a half dozen times over the next few days to make sure the block hadn't moved and to make sure that there wasn't someting under the house still that he had blocked in by mistake. I didn't want the skunk dying under there!

Fast forward to May. With the warmer weather, we started to smell something odd outside and through the heat register in the playroom. Craig started rummaging around in the basement ceiling that abuts the playroom addition and found dead mice in the ceiling. Wonderful. But that wasn't the source of the smell. No, no. Long story short, the skunk ended up dying under the playroom and that's what we were smelling! Craig had to drag it out with his hockey stick, of all things, along with all the insulation from under the addition since it all reeked of skunk! It was completely covered with maggots and stank to high heaven. Then the garbage men wouldn't take it because I'm a terrible goody-goody and actually told them there was a dead skunk in the bag, so Craig had to ride his bike to the closest variety store and dump the skunk in their dumpster out back of the store. So now we have to reinsulate the crawl space under the playroom addition before winter so we don't all freeze our tails off when the snow starts to fly.

Then last week I noticed some wasp activity around the chimney on the outside of the house. Craig went out and bought a can of Raid and, sadly, killed the hive. Well, thought he killed the hive. There was even more activity there the next day so Craig decided to investigate further. He ended up having to pull off part of the siding and found a MASSIVE wasp nest under there. In his attempt to reach all of the nest, Craig had to remove some insulation from the underside of the chimney. There were THOUSANDS of wasps all going berzerk because here's this guy spraying them with poison. Thankfully, Craig didn't get stung once but I wanted to cry when I saw the piles and piles of dead wasps and the thousands of larvae at varying stages of development. Whenever Craig would knock a new section of the nest down it would reveal another nursery section. Adult wasps were frantically trying to protect the larvae and some that were nearing being ready to hatch were trying to crawl their way out of their little hexagonal coccoon. It really was sad but I couldn't risk them getting inside the actual fireplace inside my house.

I feel terrible because since we moved in 7 months ago, we've killed a skunk (unintentionally but he's still DEAD), found 3 dead mice in the ceiling and destroyed a wasp nest filled with babies. I guess I can justify it by remembering that our backyard served as host to no less than 3 nesting bird couples. One of those couples, the robins, had three clutches of 3 babies in each clutch. Hopefully the wildlife will remain in the wild and stay away from our house.