So this weekend, was the weekend of marriage, sleeping, driving, sleeping, playing, sleeping, playing, sleeping, banging laminate floorboards into place, and sleeping again.

That’s right, I finished laying the laminate floor. Last Monday on President’s day, Chris, Ann and Kurt came over to our smoke filled house (more on that later) and helped lay down some tracks floorboards. The smokiness was because the blade which Lowes-Man told James to buy for a nice smooth edge on our floor, was way too thin and flimsy and wussy to do a proper job. So James would lower the blade, and it wouldn’t really cut, but instead the heat from the friction on the wood/ laminate would cause it to smoke and in addition to taking FOREVER to cut a board, slowly but surely, our entire house because like a scene from some midnight swamp-forest, all murky and smokey with a nasty acrid smell that made one feel sure an icy hand was going to REACH OUT FROM UNDER THE REFRIDGERATOR AND GET YOU! Ahem. Maybe not that bad, but it was smokey and hazy and stinky. So, Kurt and James set off hither and yon to Lowes to Get Thee A Bigger, Badder Miter Saw Blade. They came back and James strapped in that new blade, and it was much much better.

So we sawed and we laid and we CLICKED! and we hammered and we sawed and sawed some more, and then we got to tricky bits where weird shapes and notches had to be cut out of the middle of some boards to go around the closet door frame and Ann and I watched Galaxy Quest (I’m a big believer in entertainment during long drawn out home improvement projects) while Kurt and James sketched odd drawings on pieces of paper and then James would trot back and forth from the saw to the closet, with both of them looking and nodding to each other and saying “Just a bit more off here,” over and over.

Chris abandoned us first and then went James, which is pretty sad seeing how it was HIS ROOM we were flooring! But I guess school is a fairly good excuse. FOR NOW. So Ann and Kurt and I carried on, sawing and laying and beating and sawing some more. Oh, and let’s not forget measuring. It was kind of fun, especially with friends to make it go faster faster. But when the time came to go get kids and we called it a day, we were still just a bit shy of half-way finished. And when James returned, he commented: “Did you guys get any further?” Which about got him a fat lip.

So, Sunday morning I hopped downstairs and started working on it again, and was dismayed to find that the increasing smokiness of the new blade was… increasing. The sawing was taking longer and longer because if I pushed the blade down too far, it was just getting smokier. I decided, what the hell, I’m going to take this blade off and get the HUGE blade on, dug up the manual under all the sawdust, and carefully managed to get the old one off and the new one on. I wish we’d just used that one from the VERY BEGINNING, because that huge mother fucker sliced those boards like a HOT KNIFE THROUGH BUTTER!

I really enjoy sawing. Is that the proper term for operating a miter saw? That’s what it does, it saws, so I think I got that right. It is pretty fun, and I have to admit, when we started, and James was doing all the sawing, I was getting all itchy and fidgety, because I WANTED TO OPERATE THE SAW OF DEATH THANKYOUVERYMUCH and when I finally got to saw, I was like.. Yeah. This rocks. And I was also very determined not to lose any fingers, thanks to Ann, who helpfully said, “Your thumb!” right as I would turn the saw on. It’s a good thing. No one wants finger stubs floating around a basement, lest of all me, and ESPECIALLY lest of all, my hand. However, I am not as paranoid about the blade coming loose, flying off the saw and whacking me in the eyes, because I often forgot my safety glasses. Not even from in the other room, I’d forget them on top of my head. I guess if the blade DID come loose, I would need to be worried about more than my eyes, more like my whole head.

Anyway, sawing is fun, (“I AM AMY! I OPERATE THE SAW OF DEATH! FEAR ME! MUAHAHAHAHHA!”) and after I got the Large Blade of Dhoom installed, the sawing was much faster. I got just about done that afternoon. During nap time James came down and we finished up the floor part, and felt all anti-climatic because we still had a little corner in the closet that wasn’t finished, so we couldn’t rise and do our “we’re done, we’re done, we’re done!” song and dance. But I finished that up that evening and now…. the flooring is done 🙂 Now, we just have to install our quarter-round (think trim) and find some matching caulk to fill in some gaps around the door frames, and we’ll be DONE done!

I’m thinking Wednesday is the day for the final “we’re done, we’re done, we’re done!” song and dance 🙂

– amy feels all bad-ass today, thus the use of “mother fucker” in this post.

– amy also loves the sound when the boards “CLICK!” together perfectly.