As of today, September 19, 2011 it has been 3 1/2 months that we have been without a kitchen. What an experience! I haven't blogged in a while, because not much has been going on. Things have been quiet since the big problems with the flooring and cabinet guy. We did go pick out and purchase some Centurion Stone for the back splash behind the range hood. We patiently waited for our flooring and cabinets to arrive. Right after we submitted our online order for the flooring at Lumber Liquidators, I received an email informing me that the flooring was back ordered and wasn't scheduled to be shipped until no earlier that the 3rd of September. KraftMaid had also called to confirm that they would be delivering the cabinets to the house on the 14th. 
I kept getting this sinking feeling that the cabinets would get here before the flooring. This was going to be a major problem as I would need to keep the cabinets in the garage, and put everything that normally lives in the garage along the side of the house. This was a great concern because my baby (2009 Harley Davidson, Rocker C) would have to be kept outside. What a travesty! Oh yes, the lawn mower and snow blower would also need to spend some time in the rain, but the Rocker? Say it isn't so! With this thought in mind I kept checking the Lumber Liquidator site for the status of my order willing the status to change from Back Order to Shipped! I checked in the morning...I checked at noon...I checked in the evening...no change!
I was scheduled to leave for Chicago on the morning of the 5th, and Cassandra and I would be in Boston over the weekend for a wedding. It would be just my luck for the flooring to show up while I was out of town, leaving Cassandra to deal with a major problem again. Of course, on the 3rd I received an email informing me that my flooring had shipped. OK, so now I need to plan on the flooring getting there sometime during the week. What to do....what to do? I have it! I will call my buddy Casey! I am always amazed at the true level of friendship that my friends display toward me! They are absolutely the best! Casey didn't even blink, he said no problem even though he thought he would have to drive way up into Cincinnati to pick up the flooring. He was pleasantly surprised to learn there is now a Lumber Liquidators in Florence, KY. On Sunday night the 4th, I received another email saying the flooring had arrived at the local store and was ready for pickup. Cassandra was working all week and couldn't get to the store before Thursday. She was also flying out to Boston that day, so this was a lot for her to coordinate. Casey met her up at the store early and helped get the flooring home. It took two loads on his trailer to get the flooring home...In the rain! They had to carry the extremely heavy boxes into the house and stack them in two locations due to the extreme weight of the boxes. Thank you Casey! You are the man! Cassandra then got on her flight, but had to have help getting her bag into the overhead compartment on the aircraft as her arms were completely shot!
We got back into town on September 11th (great day to fly! we felt very safe). I would be working from home for the next couple of weeks so a great time to get started working on the floors. The first couple of days during the week, Cassandra and I spent finishing removing some of the flooring that the water abatement company had left behind. We both worked full days so we only had a short time in the evenings to focus on getting things ready. It was a lot of work to hammer in all of the old staples left over from the old flooring. I also knew that there was no way to put in new flooring without a precision saw. I had a cheap saw that I had purchased 10 years before. It was good enough to build a deck, but would not make precision angle cuts. As with any big home improvement project, one must buy a new tool! This was my chance! I purchased a great Dewalt 12" compound miter with a work stand. An absolutely essential tool for a successful installation of flooring. I would also make a run to Harbor Freight Tools to pick up a flooring nail/staple gun. It was actually cheaper to purchase to the tool than it would have been to rent the gun for the multiple days that it would take to get the flooring installed. Oh shucks! Another tool for me! The cabinets arrived right on schedule Wednesday morning. I thought it was funny that one of the delivery crew made a comment that while they were driving in he was thinking about how nice and flat all of the driveways were. Then when they came around the corner he saw our drive and could only ope that it wasn't the house that they had to deliver to. Oops! They were very quick getting all of the cabinets out and into the garage in less than 20 minutes.
It was Thursday before I could start laying out the flooring. The first thing I would like to say is...WOW, this was a ton of work! Cassandra and I worked Thursday evening, Friday evening, and all day and late into the night on Saturday to install the floors in the kitchen, breakfast area, family room and entry area. I could barely walk when we finished. Up and down...up and down...I felt like someone had taken a hammer to my hips. I looked like someone had taken a hammer to my shins! Oh wait, that was me. I missed a couple of big swings right into the leg. Ouch! I was so proud of Cassandra! She jumped in and did her part. She would lay out the boards so that our patterns and board lengths were random. She would also jump in and take her turn driving the staples into the tongue of the boards. She was a real trouper! Peyton and Paige also helped carry flooring boards and picked the best looking pieces for the best areas of the floor. I gave that new miter saw a real workout, as well as my small table saw where I needed to rip down pieces to fit along the walls and in the closets. 
We were able to recycle a few of the cabinets that weren't damaged. Most went into the basement for possible future use as storage, but we were able to move three uppers and the oven cabinet into the laundry room to become storage for cleaning supplies. I will be adding shelves to the cabinet where the oven was once I get everything else completed. We are going to paint the cabinets white so they don't distract from the Kaffe color cabinets going into the kitchen. It is good to reuse! 
The second major point I would like to make is how important it is to start out straight. I have installed flooring before so I knew this was extremely important to ensure that you have an excellent result. I took my time and made sure that I had a very straight line to start my first course from. It was also beneficial that the paper had lines to help keep you straight. I measured and re-measured each piece of the first two courses to ensure that the floor was absolutely straight. Once the first course was confirmed to be absolutely straight it was just an exercise in setting an individual piece straight and then repeating that about 1,000 times! I was so happy when we arrived at the opposite wall and where the flooring me the tile to find out that after all of that flooring we were less than 1/8" off end to end. That was a blessing and a relief!
We only ran into a couple of issues during the entire installation of that flooring. The flooring nailer jammed once (my fault), which required me to break it down and get the pieces of staple that jammed out. The second issue was one piece of flooring that wasn't aligned perfectly, and had a tiny gap. That gap was going to cause a problem with the subsequent courses of flooring. Unfortunately, I had put the next course on and didn't notice until I was trying to place the next overlapping course. I was able to fix it by trimming off the tongue and a portion of the offending flooring. When I fit the next piece you couldn't even tell that we had done anything. Whew! I thank my wife for keeping me calm! I was not a happy camper that I had made such an error. She just kept telling me we were giving the floor character. What a jem!
Sunday I only put the last couple of pieces of flooring in that section that required me to rip down some pieces, so we held off on Saturday night because we were tired and prone to error. We cleaned up the sawdust and waste pieces from the cuts. It was amazing how little waste we had. We did a great job of utilizing the flooring. We now have only the hall, bathroom, dining and living areas to do flooring on. We will finish that after we put in the kitchen cabinets. The next area of focus is to get the cabinets installed so we can have the counter people out to measure for the granite. Cabinets will be the focus of our next blog. I can't wait! Oh wait! Yes I can...I am really nervous about installing them. I don't want to mess them up...time to phone a friend...Oh Jonathan!
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