I am not good at stuff. Seriously, this is not some kind of humblebrag. This is me telling people that I suck at most things. For some reason though, my wife thinks I can do things. Build a patio? Sure, why not. Lights, switches, outlets…yeah, I can handle that stuff. Painting? Oh yeah, I can do that, maybe not the best ever, but I can do it. Actual construction though? Nah, that’s not me.
We hate the entryway from the garage. For some reason the previous owners decided to carpet the area from the basement to the landing and then up the steps.
As you can imagine, the carpet is hard to keep clean. Back in March we had a bit of a water problem in the basement. We were under the impression that the carpet was ruined so I went to Lowe’s and purchased some vinyl plank flooring to install in the basement. Luckily, Lindsey’s dad was able to remove the carpet and dry it out. I replaced the pad underneath and we put the carpet back down.
We decided to use some of it for the entryway (and we may use the rest for the laundry room and maybe the kitchen). I got to work yesterday with the installation. First up was removing the carpet…
I swear they used fifty gallons of adhesive on the carpet pad. I used a scraper on the floor after to scrape up most of the glue. Fun stuff!
Next came the steps. There were about 12,000 staples. Sometimes I pulled staples out of staples. Needless to say, removing the carpet and pad took me way longer than I expected. I was already three hours into the process and all I had finished was the setup.
I will not lie, the planks were actually easier than I expected. I was able to get the landing done in about two hours. I was flying pretty high at that point. Then came the stairs. I worked for about two more hours, then it was time for dinner and after that I had to go outside to shovel some snow. I picked back up the next morning and it took me another six hours to do the steps.
I probably cursed way more than I have on any other project. I also can honestly say that I screwed up a bunch of times and had to start again. Good thing I have a ton of those planks. All I have left to do is sand the sides of the stairs and maybe paint edge white. Not 100% sure yet.
I have no clue if I will continue with the flooring. Lindsey wants me to do the laundry room and perhaps the kitchen. That seems like such a huge task.
