If I’d known it was going to take an hour…

…I’d have done it three days ago.

So last Tuesday I put down the new floor in the main cabin, right? And I thought it went quite well but it definitely went slowly. I started at seven in the morning and didn’t straighten up until 2 in the afternoon. Then another hour’s cleanup and storing. So seven or eight hours’ hard work for the old man. The next day I could not bend over; my back and I strained something in my thigh…it was not a good moment when two poorly-applied floor seams popped right near the kitchen counter where the only way to fix it was to pull up almost the whole thing. I was so bummed I actually considered just applying some finish nails and letting it go. Ten years ago that’s exactly what I’d have done. Which is of course why the earliest parts of the Lair are the most amateurish and unfinished.

But no – I was going to be an adult about this and do it right. I needed a couple of days to heal, honestly. Then I needed another few days to work up the want-to – pure procrastination but I always intended to do it.

And when all my excuses were gone, as with most things I really don’t want to do I resolved to hit it first thing in the morning before other thoughts could intrude. And in the end…

It only took an hour. Seriously – I could have knocked this out in an evening. I stacked the ‘planks’ very carefully as I pulled them up, to ensure no confusion about going back exactly the same way they came up. By the end of the job last Tuesday I definitely knew what I was doing which is why the oopsies happened early, and this morning I knew what to look for and what not to do. Of course I didn’t have to go in and out cutting pieces. I shouldn’t have any further problems.

Unfortunately I still can’t bring the woodstove in from the porch…

…because I obviously wouldn’t have been happy with the result of putting a cast-iron stove on this fragile laminated floor. I had to come up with some sort of pedestal, and the solution I settled on is – though I say it myself – a marvel of the scrounging arts. Wish I could show it to you, but it’s currently in the powershed. The pallet base that S&L’s new floor came strapped to is a 2×4′ piece of almost clear 3/4″ plywood that right now I couldn’t even afford to buy. I pulled it loose from the pallet very carefully, stained it, and then yesterday I hid it in the powershed because it rained yesterday – and it’s raining right now and is forecast to rain off and on all day. I need a couple of coats of urethane first but it will fit neatly in the woodstove corner and should make an acceptable base for the stove, which is currently wrapped in a tarp to protect it from the wet.