Warning: Not safe for delicate ears.
When my ex-husband John was a mere lad he enjoyed playing carpenter with his own little hammer, nails, and wood. His dad was working in construction those days and what little boy doesn’t like to emulate his daddy? One day, when his grandmother, “Hoddie,” was visiting, she overheard him hammering, and yammering away. Upon closer observation, she noticed he seemed quite agitated. With each stroke of his toy hammer he exclaimed, “motherfucker!” Horrified, she set to nip the situation in the bud and informed him that job-site lingo was off limits. A few weeks later he and his mother, Mary, were shopping at Foley’s, the local department store. While Mary was perusing the racks, John approached a sweet, unsuspecting, little old lady. He gently tugged on her skirt and politely informed her, “We don’t say motherfucker. We say goll-ee.” I have no idea who resuscitated the woman, but Mary was half-way down the escalator before her conscience drug her back to claim her son.
A couple weeks ago, while I was out running errands, the bottom fell out of the sky and it rained sideways for a solid hour or so. Upon returning home I discovered a fair amount of rain had somehow made its way into my 5th wheel, leaving the carpet a soggy, wet mess. This same spot had leaked at least once before and I’d had it repaired. Or so I thought. Reluctant to call the RV repair guy out again, I did my own detective work. The seam he sealed looked in tact. The ceiling appeared to be free of water damage. The only suspicious spot was the window. There was a small pool of water on the inside lip. The windows are designed with little drain holes on the outside to prevent water from pooling, but the drains on this particular window were clogged with debris. Satisfied I’d found the source, it was time to deal with the nasty carpet. From the moment I bought my trailer I had wanted to take it out. I’d seen so many awesome renovations online, yet each time I thought about tackling it, my inspiration and enthusiasm were instantaneously crushed by the realization that it’s just little ol’ me, and little ol’ me doesn’t know jack shit about RV renovation. But there I was standing barefoot on this sopping wet, smelly, 13-year-old filthy carpet, and something had to be done. Hiring someone was financially out of the question. I could always dry it out again with towels and a fan, but ick, it was so gross and who knows how many times it had leaked before?
I spent the next half hour watching DIY videos and had a brief conversation with my park managers about their own experience. They assured me it was no big deal and suggested I might even be one of the lucky ones whose RV had linoleum under all of the carpet. As ugly as the fake tile was, it would be far preferable to soggy carpet, and would save me the hassle of laying flooring. My confidence momentarily buoyed I crossed my fingers, grabbed my pliers, and started tugging. Three things became crystal clear over the next few minutes:
- The wet spot had been wet many, many times.
- It is impossible to wield a tool and not drop an F-bomb.
- I was not one of the lucky ones.
Alas, the linoleum stopped short about three feet from the end. Useless. The carpet, on the other hand, appeared to go beyond the end, into some parallel universe, held there by an alien force. Separating it from the edge required superhuman strength elbow grease and resulted in a veritable minefield of F-bombs. At some point in the next hour or so, reality began to settle in and I became acutely aware that, not being one of the lucky ones, once the carpet was gone I’d have to replace it with something. This thought was just short of terrifying, but it was too late to turn back. Hell bent and determined, armed with only my floral knife and regular pliers, I proceeded to rip up most of the remaining carpet. I may be impulsive and a little rash, ahem, but I knew damn well not to fuck with the carpet on the slide outs or the steps. Occasionally I do know when to stop.
If I’d had any second thoughts about removing the carpet, the sight of what was under it was enough to assure me I was doing the right thing. Into the dumpster it went. Good riddance.
A few hours later I hit a wall, pun intended, and called it a night. I was running on empty and my tools were grossly inadequate for removing the final bits from the edges, and let’s not forget the fourteen bazillion mother-trucking staples. Before bed I made two lists. Home Depot: utility knife and needle nose pliers. HEB: Epsom salts and arnica gel.
The following morning, armed with fresh enthusiasm and new tools, I set to work. By lunchtime my right arm was damn near limp but I’d finally gotten the last stubborn pieces of carpet and all the godforsaken staples out. Fortunately my section of the RV park is pretty deserted during the day and the chorus of obscenities emanating from my trailer likely only offended a few cardinals and chickadees.
Next, the linoleum. It came out way easier than the carpet, thank the gods, because by then my arm was toast. And luckily it all fit in my handy dandy Radio Flyer and I didn’t have to phone a friend with a truck to haul it to the dumpster.
Time for Home Depot trip number two. I gotta say, I love my local Home Depot. It’s never terribly busy and it’s staffed with a bunch of guys who for the most part really know their shit and are happy to walk me through my project du jour without making me feel like a complete buffoon. Charlie patiently schooled me in the pros and cons of various flooring options. Sold by its ease of cutting, I loaded my cart up with Allure laminate in Country Pine. Earlier in the day I’d done a relatively respectable calculation of the square footage necessary and came up with roughly 82 square feet. Each box held 24 square feet. I bought four boxes. Rule of thumb is to count on at least 10% more than you think you’ll need. That would leave me with about 6 square feet to spare. Seemed good enough, and a 5th box at $42 was really pushing my already very strained budget.
Last summer when I chose to sell damn near everything and move into a 5th wheel, I made every effort to simplify. I tried to only keep things that I really needed and/or truly made me happy. Turns out I need and love a lot of super heavy things. Towards the end of furnishing my new home I began to wonder if the next item might be the straw that, well, makes the floor fall through. This has concerned me so much that for the last 8 months I’ve had my ancient, ridiculously heavy sewing machine in the back seat of my car, afraid it might truly tip the scales. I mention this because those boxes are heavy as fuck. I gingerly set each one inside with a quick little prayer to the universe, hoping that the lack of carpet and linoleum would balance out and I wouldn’t find myself not just laying a floor, but rebuilding one. I’m happy to report that the boxes weren’t the final straw; however, I’m still hauling around a sewing machine.
Twenty some odd years ago I actually laid a hardwood floor. That was BC, before children, so my memory is a bit foggy, but I’m pretty dang sure I even made the cuts with a chop saw on my own. I know for a fact I used a nail gun and then sanded the whole dadgum thing. I remember it being fun. A challenge. I had no expectations of this being fun, and had no doubt it would be a challenge, but the fact that it did not require power tools was a huge bonus. I’m most definitely not 22 anymore. Word is, there is no easier flooring to lay than this Allure stuff. The box even says so.
Hmmm. Now we’re talkin’…
So, around 7pm on day two, I cracked open a bottle of wine and my first box. I spent a few moments contemplating which direction to lay the planks. Did I want them lengthwise when entering the door, or when turning the corner? Ultimately I opted for around the corner. Which in hindsight was TOTALLY the right choice, and one I did not fully grasp, until I actually turned the corner the next day and realized I could finally start laying whole pieces. At the entrance each piece had to be cut to fit, but that was a tiny area compared to the “living room” area. If I’d done it the other way around, every dang piece would have had to be cut. My decision had simply been an aesthetic one, but turned out to be fortuitously practical. Yay for dumb luck.
Halfway through both the bottle of wine and the first box of flooring I called it a night. The morning of day three I turned the corner and discovered my second stroke of dumb luck. Someone slightly more forward thinking and practical than myself might have thought to make a couple critical measurements before starting off. I hadn’t taken into consideration where the planks would end up once I made it to the edge of the kitchen island, or the side opposite the door. Somewhere along the way I was likely going to have to cut the boards lengthwise to get them to fit. And while yes, this material is relatively easier to cut than wood, and all it requires is a utility knife, my wrist could already attest that it was hardly easy. A quick calculation at the beginning and I could have cut the very first board to adjust for the difference. But, as blind luck would have it, the lines matched up perfectly at the island. It was clear there was going to be some necessary adjusting when I got to the opposite side, but by then I’d be a pro and those cuts would be child’s play. Um, hmmm.
I rounded the next corner and laid what I could in the kitchen area, stumped again with just over an inch on either side that trim alone would not cover. Nevertheless, I stubbornly trudged on, convinced that by the end I’d have a brilliant solution. Soon I came to the wet spot. I’d had a fan on it since day one, and had periodically sprayed some anti-mildew type product on it. It was certainly drier than it was originally. But covering it up now was even too impatient for my hasty nature, so I hopped in the car and made Home Depot trip number three. Time to shop for trim.
Trim is the amateur carpenter’s best friend. It fixes a whole host of fuck ups. As long as they are less than one inch wide. And as long as you can wrap your head around the miter saw. Nate at Home Depot hooked me up with the special plastic yellow miter saw for dummies. Which after ten minutes leaves you feeling slightly smarter than an amoeba.
Time to FaceTime Bob, my stepdad, and one helluva carpenter. He patiently walked me thru how to use the dang thing, how to measure (do I measure to the long end or the short end??), suggested I hold off on the wine, and wished me luck. Unfortunately this task wasn’t something that could be done in the privacy of my own home, lest I risk sawing off part of the countertops. No, this had to be done outside, in full view of all my neighbors. I tried my best to keep the F-bombs in check, but there’s a damn lot that can’t be conveyed thru FaceTime and fucking hell who knew the thing needed to be screwed down, and the little bolt thingys would chip the trim if you put them in the wrong way, and oh yeah, make sure the trim is at a right angle flush up against the side, and the biggest revelation of all that I actually did not discover until the next day: QUARTER ROUND TRIM HAS A TALL SIDE AND A SHORT SIDE. Really, this needs to be broadcast far and wide. Because when you look at it with the unsuspecting eye it looks the same. Until you know for a fact you made the right cuts and the freaking trim is still not matching up and then you look a little closer and realize, what the fuck? It’s cruel I tell you. Because ok, if trim is what fixes fuck ups, what fixes trim fuck ups? I have a tube of brown colored putty that I am expecting great things out of.
I trimmed as much as I could and then took a three day break from carpentry. My arm and neck were barely functional and the wet spot still needed some time to dry. Another wedding on the books (when I’m not pretending to be a carpenter I earn a halfway decent living as a floral designer), and I was back at it. By then I had a week of sweat and right around $200 invested, with no assurance other than my hunch that the leak was fixed. For days I’d been hoping it’d rain so I could test my theory. With no rain in the forecast I called in my son. Time to take matters into my own hands and make it rain. He stood outside with the hose and blasted the window, doing his best to simulate an honest to goodness Texas turd floater. I watched intently from inside, towel at the ready in case it leaked. Not a drop snuck in. Which left me with two theories. One, the window was indeed the culprit and as long as I kept the drain holes clean it was fixed. Two, the leak had come from god only knows where, in which case a professional would have to come out and assess the situation, charging a minimum of $80 just to show up, and then quite possibly hundreds of dollars later the leak might be fixed. I recently quit my financially comfortable job and am having a go at this freelance thing after not working for five full weeks due to intense back pain. All that to say, $200 in already, and the thought of potentially hundreds more, I was willing to take my chances with theory number one. Another silent prayer released to the universe and I barreled on. The rest of the floor went pretty quickly as there was minimal cutting until I got the the end and edges. Remember that calculation I’d done? Well, it was slightly off. My four boxes got me about four planks shy of a whole house. Home Depot trip number four and $42 later I now have enough flooring to do the bathroom if one day I lose my ever loving mind.
So, all those areas I planned to revisit once I was an old pro and full of brilliant ideas, yeah well it was reckoning time. First up was the gap under the kitchen cabinets. I was left with the blue sticky strip from the last piece plus roughly half an inch of subfloor. Too wide to just cover up with trim, and too hard to cut 1.5″ strips of flooring, I’d been wracking my brain looking for a solution. And then it hit me. The overlapping piece on each plank was about 1″ wide, and it was super easy to snap off. I gathered up all my scraps and snapped off the edges. They went down perfectly over the blue sticky strip and then trim covered the rest! There was a moment when light shone from above and I know I heard angels.
Next up: the pesky slide outs. All along I’d been thinking that I would need some sort of trim to finish the edges. Something smooth to make the transition between the floor and the slide, thus allowing the slide to do its thing and slide. The kitchen slide out had a gap of about an inch right under the carpet ledge. I seriously doubt anyone but me would have ever noticed it, but I knew for a fact it would not only drive me crazy, but it would attract every scrap of food and debris that made its way to the floor.
On the opposite side under the cabinets I’d had the sticky blue edge to work with. The nature of the flooring is that it only sticks to itself; there’s nothing sticking it directly to the floor. So I couldn’t just lay strips of flooring there without some sort of adhesive. Luckily I’d purchased a tube of Power Grab, originally thinking I was going to glue the trim down. The cuts weren’t as simple as the last ones had been; these required accurate measuring and a fair amount of elbow grease, but thirty minutes later and problem spot number two was, for most intents and purposes, remedied.
Next to last, the living room slide out. This was a wee bit more challenging. The gap ranged from half an inch to an inch and a half. Originally I blamed this on my poor planning and lack of proper measuring. But honestly everything else had come up square. I’m gonna let Lakota (the manufacturer, not the tribe) take the fall for this one. Nate at Home Depot had shown me some metal trim that once screwed down would flatten out quite well and most likely do the job. I just couldn’t picture where it would start and stop and how to make that look right, not to mention function. Still rejoicing from my winning solutions in the kitchen, skeptical about the metal trim, and well stocked with plenty of extra flooring, I once again bit the bullet and cut multiple strips of flooring, starting at a half inch and gradually increasing to an inch and a half. It was time consuming, ridiculously frustrating, and despite my week of experience it was anything but child’s play, but holy moly, in the end seamlessly beautiful. Cue the angels.
Last but not least, the final trim. See those steps in the pic above, particularly that little ledge? That was the final frontier. And ultimately my undoing. I’d bought all the Saratoga Hickory trim my local Home Depot had in stock and had been putting off making the trek to the city for one more piece. Two hours and three near accidents later, Home Depot trip number five was complete and I attempted to make friends with the miter saw again. It’s amazing what you can forget in a few short days. A half dozen mis-cuts here and there and I was grateful for that split second decision I’d made hours earlier. Remembering my miscalculation with the flooring I’d decided another $7.29 was worth not having to risk life and limb driving to the city again and I bought a second piece of trim. Well into the spare piece, I’d given up trying to get the trim flush with the wall under the steps. Even I couldn’t see it and by then I was entering full on I-Don’t-Give-A-Fuck stage. I just had to hammer in one last piece. Under that damn ledge. The obscenities that came out of my mouth were shocking. I hit my thumb no less than three times. Finally I gave up and sent this desperate and particularly foul text to a friend, “OMG. I beg you. Next time you’re driving by my place, come hammer in this one motherfucking, godforsaken, piece of shit nail. Please.” As it stands now, he hasn’t taken pity on me, although he did offer plenty of helpful advice, none of which I’ve tried. The trim is more or less just sitting there, nail half way in, and I’m at least for now willing to overlook it. Because holy shit, look at all the rest!
Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that I haven’t tested the slide outs. It’s entirely possibly they will get hung up on the flooring and not slide in like they are supposed to. But you know what? I’m not planning on moving this thing anytime soon and I’m perfectly happy delaying that moment of gratification or disappointment. There have been enough F-bombs dropped for the time being.
And my ex, well he passed on the torch. Picture the scene: Guest Sunday at the Episcopal Church. The service had just let out and everyone, regulars and guests included, were gathered in the courtyard enjoying coffee and donuts. Our oldest son was about five, probably the same age John was that day in the department store. Something, could have been anything, ticked him off and he went tearing through the crowd screaming, “fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck!” I shrunk away into the shrubbery, secretly impressed with his creative string of F-bombs. John probably hid in the bathroom. And poor Mary was left once again to claim a foul mouthed five-year-old.