Bill and Traci: Handy Dandy

Traci never ceases to amaze me with the "stuff" that she can do. She plays music, teaches children, re-landscapes the whole yard, can troubleshoot and identify issue with a car engine, can drive in the snow and ice, paint, clean (not the normal type either...) and most recently I learned that she can resurface floors.

When I moved to Kansas City 4 years ago, from California, I learned to adapt to a completely different life style... well, almost. The pace that people live life is way slower, there are actually 4 seasons throughout the year and for some unknown reason the bathrooms have carpet in them. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would do something like that and have not been able to find anyone from this area to explain the reasoning behind it.

After several months of discussion Traci and I decided that something needed to be done about the funny floors. We agreed that anything but carpet would be an upgrade. So we spent some time at Lowes bending every single piece of linoleum they own. We settled on a tile that was fancier than the linoleum on the roll; however, not as fancy as ceramic tile.

We purchased everything we needed to get the job done and borrowed some tools from one of our friends who is re-modeling his whole house. My plan was to tear up the carpet one weekend, clean the floor the next, pull out the toilet one night during the week after dinner, lay the tile the following weekend, and then complete the project the following weekend by installing the baseboard and transition (metal piece between the carpet and tiles). I also thought that it would be a good idea to start downstairs in a bathroom that we rarely use and learn from our mistakes.

Here is how the project unfolded: We ripped up the carpet to see what the floor looked like underneath.

The floors after the carpet was pulled

Traci was laying the 12x12 tiles within 12 hours and had begun ripping out the carpet upstairs withing the next 24 hours. We finished all 3 bathrooms... I mean, she finished all three bathrooms in under a week. She was a machine. :-) And here I was envisioning us giggling, taking turns laying the pieces and enjoying each other's company while we transformed these three rooms. It was just the opposite, as Traci was a cutting, tile laying, caulking machine. My job was to pull the toilets, nail in the baseboards and stay clear all other times. I was really good at number third one.