New Floors - Day 8 - Part 2

The Install.

Wow.  I apologize in advance if I misspell things.  Fury has a way of making my hands shake.  Admittedly, a lot of the anger is in the stuff I wrote about in the last blog.  But not all. 

No, not all by a long shot.

I am not a flooring expert or installer.  I know this.  I don't claim to be.  But I have learned, over the years of installing our own tile and watching a lot of Scott McGillivray, that you start your flooring on an actual straight line (not a wall, which can be wonky) and you plan to have as large a plank as possible on the edges of both sides, meaning that it would be better to have 4/10ths of a board on two sides than 7/10ths on one side and 1/10th on another.  Or, for that matter, a 1/4" gap between your stair nosing and the next full plank.

That's right, folks.  Preplanning and awesomeness intact, there is what can only be described as a sliver of wood between the full planks and the stair nosing.  The biggest problem with this is that any discrepancies are magnified.

In this case, the width changes between the sliver and the end of the nosing where the shelf wall is because our old house is not square.  We know it isn't square.  That's the way of old houses.  Especially houses that partially slumped during a landslide and were since shored up with an I-beam into the bedrock.  Yep, not square.  But do you have to emphasize it?

And then there's this.  Turns out not only did he not really plan to be sure the FLOOR WOULD BE LEVEL AT THE STAIR NOSING!  LEVEL!!!  Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's something that FLOORS SHOULD BE!  Again, the problem of complete incompetence is compounded by not having a larger section of wood to bridge the gap.  Even though it would have still probably been evident, it wouldn't have that horrible little jog in the baseboard and a 1/4 inch ramp up to the stair nosing.  And then, to top it all off, the installer BLAMED SPF!  SPF DID NOT LAY THE STAIR NOSING!  And the plywood that he did lay was LEVEL TO THE PREVIOUS FLOORING THAT THE INSTALLER LAID! 

Deep breath in two three, out two three.  In two three, out two three.

Sorry for that outburst.  I didn't mean to start screaming.  Which I am, by the way.  Pretty much always right now.  And SPF, who is a significantly better craftsman, gentleman, and human being that the installer corrected him nicely, with the logic I just provided, and said "Make it the best you can."  At which point he, nicely, excused himself from the situation before his head exploded.

That night, I wrote an email to the AMAZING STAIR GUYS (to the rescue, again) and told them the situation.  The next day, they agreed to help us rip out this monstrosity (to which Travis, upon seeing an image, replied "That's just sad.") 

And it is.  But, truthfully, it isn't the saddest part.

This is.  This is the blue tape that the lead installer put down to mark the area where the floor had to be built up with shimming and glue.  That's not the sad part.  I get it, not a square or level house.  Over large areas, I understand there are going to be issues.  No, the sad part is that the tape isn't for us.  Or for our one- and three-year-olds.  No, the tape is for his co-worker, who kept stepping on it just after it was laid.  The head guy initially said, "Dude, be careful over here."  To which his counterpart said, "Oh, yeah."  But he kept stepping on it anyway.  Over and over and over again.  Even after the tape was laid down.  And when, at the height of his own frustration (and clearly seeing SPF's face turning red from fury (he's working literally right next to this area, BTW) the head guy snapped at him, "Dude, stay away from there!"  At which point his counterpart dangled his foot over the marked off area and made wobbly gestures and noises like he was going to fall.  Like a child would do.  Not a teenager or even a boy, but a toddler.  Someone who thinks games are fun when you say "Don't do that, please" and take it as an invitation to do it more.

I honestly don't know how SPF didn't stand up, punch the guy in the face, and say, "This is my home, you get that, right?  My house, where I will be living that you're trying to screw up."  And then demand that he leave.  I don't advocate violence of any kind, but I would really, really, really have liked to punch that guy right in the face.

So I'm angry.  I'm angry because ignorant, sexist, foolish people were sent to my house and they did a mediocre job.  I'm angry that our budget is shot because we are having to order more stair nosing and baseboards on our own dime and hire better people to fix the mistakes of worse people.  I'm angry because this change is transformative.  The space looks amazing and we can't enjoy it because we are slogging up remodel hell mountain.  Where all they had to do was stomp on some wood planks and shove them into place with the tongue and groove system, the house looks great.  (That is what they did, by the way.  Honestly, just dropped a piece of flooring down, and slammed it into place with a shoe, sometimes going back with a hammer and one of those metal wedges that helps encourage the pieces to lock together more tightly.)

But this looks great.  The tile accent is amazing, the baseboards, where installed correctly or at all, look so finished and nice.  Why couldn't they take pride in the more difficult areas of the job and stand behind their work?

Oh, yeah, and in a side conversation SPF mentioned that the stair guys were coming on Friday (this would be last Friday at this point) which is when the carpet people were supposed to come.   We were given strict instructions that no two disciplines should be there at the same time, so we called to move the stair install back to Monday (two days ago).  The floor installer took it upon himself to reschedule the carpet install.  So, unbeknownst to or approved by us, the carpet was delayed a solid week.  They don't even come until tomorrow morning.  No one ever thought to call us and be sure that the flooring installer was correct in his assessment.  Come to think of it, since I paid the down payment, no one has bothered to contact me about anything, or return my calls or emails, and I have to call and call and call and talk to whoever I can get to stay on the line with me. 

So, despite the wishes of the flooring company in regards to multiple disciplines working simultaneously, the carpet is starting tomorrow and Travis and Mike are coming to fix the bad flooring and, hopefully, start the stair install at the same time.  Travis already knows that we won't have all of the stair nosing, but they agreed to come anyway.  I think at this point they feel badly for us. 

I am a bit nervous about the carpet installers, because I was given the impression that the hardwood floor installers were the best of the best that this company had to offer, where the carpet guys were a bit more harsh.  So wish me lots and lots and lots of patience and luck.