It's all about the floor...............

And so the saga begins.

I did get a bit of hand applique completed at Monday sewing, but at my pace, it's going to take a couple more weeks to get that block done. That's OK, although I really should get myself out to the gazebo with that applique and an audiobook and I bet I could finish that block in a couple of hours.

I seem to be very good at reading out there. When I finally did get home after my massage, I grabbed my book and zipped out to the gazebo. DH thinks I'm skipping pages, but I don't skip pages - EVER. I finished the book. I briefly came in to get something to eat which I took back out to the gazebo. I got a quilt as it was getting a wee bit chilly and by 7:30 PM, I was done!

Gosh - I LOVE that gazebo and my chair. It's so private and comfortable, I could retire there! Of course, I'm never alone as every once in a while, the girls had to zip through the gazebo, run around my chair to announce that they were still outside and that I should be taking notice of them.

I had to leave Monday sewing early as I had an appointment with a flooring company that is going to lay the new floor.

We had a very long chat about the types of flooring, the advantages of this one or that one. My head is swimming, but I came home with some samples. And also the bad news that we aren't going to be able to patch the floors - they all have to be redone from scratch.

I asked him how he would patch the floors. Oh - he has to bring the floor back to the point where he starts a new row and then starts. Well, I don't have enough samples of that to do that large of a repair and it would totally stupid to have different types of flooring put together. Now back to the insurance company to explain that to them.

In other words, this all has to come out so that the boards are even with the section at the bottom of the photo. That's a whole lot more floor that has to come up. Then there's the underpadding which is going to be different.

The floor has to come out to even it up

Yep - going to be better to just rip it all up. When I say - rip it up- I mean the ENTIRE basement including the stash room. There's a repair necessary in that room as well. I might as well do it right. Otherwise, the resale value would be affected if the floors were shoddily repaired. Not that I'm about to sell, but just thinking of the future.

The repair for the stash room

I'm looking at a vinyl floor. There are several kinds. I think there are three kinds of vinyl floor. The low end is vinyl with some kind of core in it. There's another that is thick vinyl planks and the third which is called loose lay. You literally lay it on the floor - no clicking. The guy doesn't like the loose lay and I don't think I do either.

I brought home some samples. I liked this one in the store - it has a very distressed look and wouldn't show marks that well. But in the space, it's very grey.

One option for the floor

 Here is another option, but it's way too white. I'm trying to avoid the wood look, but not going too far away from the wood since the rest of the house is done with hardwood.

This one is much too white

 Another option, but not quite right.

A bit too dark

Oh, this one is just perfect. Has a more brown feel to it, but doesn't look like the existing floor. It's got a distressed feel to it and I think this is the one that I'm going to go for as long as the floor guy says it'll work in that space. He's coming this morning to check it out.

I like this one

It will probably take a day or two to get back to the insurance company to explain the flooring situation. Once that is approved, then we set a date to start demolition and moving. I'm so NOT looking forward to that day. It's going to be done in sections. My guess? 6 sections. But we might get lucky and do it in 4. I'll see what they say. That means I need to get my butt in gear and start moving what I do NOT want from the basement. More on that tomorrow. 

We have quite a few "experts" in the Monday sewing group. We have a retired nurse, a pharmacist, several types of geologists, and many others. As a result, we were talking about X-rays yesterday. X-rays have come a long way. This is a foot X-ray. Not just anyone's foot X-ray. This is M's foot. She did something to her foot as she was racing down the 18 floors of stairs at her apartment building because the elevator was out. Thankfully, nothing is broken. But doesn't it look cool to see all those little bones in our feet????

M's foot X-ray

 This is what Jan was working on at the Monday sewing. I think it was because she had little nine-patch blocks left over from another project. So she's adding courthouse steps to them. Super cute. I wish I could be making something like that, but I've got other things to clean up before I can get to that.

Jan's little blocks

I think the nine patches are 1 ½" finished. That's tiny!!!!

I haven't been to my studios for a couple of days. I hope to get there for at least an hour today. I've got some more paperwork that has to be done today. I should be able to finish up all the urgent paperwork by the end of this week. That will be awesome!!!  But I've got quilts to quilt, embroidery to do - it's going to be jam packed!!!

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!