Monday Morons--Me

Last week we had temperatures in the 100+ range and red ozone alert days and everything. You're supposed to stay inside unless absolutely necessary and drink lots of water and all of that. Ideally, you should go watch a movie or stay home and watch TV or read all day. Don't do anything strenuous.

So what did I do last week? I moved furniture. I ripped up carpet and smashed tiles. I mixed cement.

Okay, so that wasn't so smart.

I've set myself a deadline for getting done with this business of getting the carpet out of my house, and ozone alert days or not, I'm getting it done.

So this is what I've been doing. First, I take everything off of a couple of bookcases. Next, I move the bookcases away from the wall to someplace very inconvenient, like right up next to the bed. That all took a bit of work, so then I have a bit of a rest and watch some TV. Then I have to put all of the stuff back onto the bookshelves. Then I put on some latex gloves and remove the carpet and the padding that was along the wall where the bookcases were. Have a bit of a rest and watch more TV. Then put on eye protection and get a hammer and remove all the tiles and the rotting wood and the nails. That part is hard work, and I usually can't do that all at once. More TV. Have a soda. Then I sweep up the broken tiles. More TV. Then it's time to scrub the floor. Watch more TV while the floor dries. Then I put on another pair of latex gloves and apply a coat of something sort of like glue. More TV while that dries. Put on another pair of gloves and apply a second coat of the glue stuff.

So that probably took all day, if I had all day to devote to the project. Sometimes I just do half of it after I've gone somewhere with my husband, or sometimes there's some other errand that has to be done first.

The next day I mix this cement-like stuff that fills in the cracks and the holes left by the nails along the wall. That's probably all that I have to do about the little holes. Some of the cracks are probably due to problems with the foundation and I'll have to "fix" them again in a few years.

Mixing the cement doesn't seem like a lot of work, but then it's an hour and a half later and I'm exhausted. But the tools have to be cleaned right away or they'll be ruined. There's nothing else I can do for the rest of the day but watch the floor dry. The next day I put on more latex gloves, apply something on top of the cement, wait for it to dry, and then apply a second coat. I'm probably supposed to wait a few days before this step, but I really haven't got the time because I've got to move the bookcases back where they were and move a desk or something else and start the whole thing again.

Any normal person wouldn't do it this way. Any normal person would move all of the furniture out of the room and do the whole floor all at once. And if you want a nice smooth floor that is the way it is supposed to be done. Except that I haven't got an empty room to move all of the furniture to, and with the weird weather and such I'm afraid to move the stuff outside, even for a week or so. And there's really no way to get the bed out anyway. It's a wonder we got it into the room in the first place, back when we first moved and the rest of the house was empty. I just don't think that I could do it now.

So now I've done this to all of the floor in the bedroom, except for the floor that is under the bed. So the plan now is to move the bed into one corner of the room so that I can get to most of that, and then when that is done move the bed again so I can get to the rest of it. So we'll be moving the bed today, and then I'll do some of the work and then

Then we're going out of town for most of the week. This is a lot of work, and I need a break. But the end is in sight, and if moving the bed goes okay I should be able to finish everything up the week after we get back. The floor won't look pretty, but I'll worry about that later. The important thing is that the mold and such will be gone and I won't worry about that anymore.