sunshine0221's Diaryland Diary
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The Exciting Entry About My Kitchen Floor
The Exciting Entry About My Kitchen Floor
I bought my house in 1994, and it came with a raised floor in the kitchen. Apparently the people who had originally built the kitchen were freakishly tall, and they had the cabinets and counters custom made for their height. The raised floor was installed at some point, and adorned with cheapass white stick on vinyl tile in an ugly pattern that had some kind of symbiotic relationship with dirt that made it impossible to keep clean. Because the floor was raised after the cabinets were put in, the kick space got covered up and stuff was always getting stuck inside the cupboard doors.
Having the raised floor removed is one of the projects that I have been meaning to get to, but have apparently been too busy not doing other projects to get to this one. Also I was not sure what would be under the raised floor. My optimistic side hoped that the nice wood floor that was right next to the raised floor would just continue, and all that would be required to have a non-raised floor would be a quick cleanup. My other side was afraid that there would be an enormous hole that turned out to be a portal to a Hellmouth, and that I would never be able to use my kitchen again without getting sucked into an alternate dimension.
When I finally acquired the courage a few weeks ago to have the raised floor removed, the reality was somewhere in between. There was no nice wood floor. There was a subfloor with plywood over it with ancient peeling linoleum and remnants of stuck on carpet padding. And also for extra points a mummified mouse.
I acquired some very pretty Italian ceramic tile when I was working at a previous job, and this was my Plan B if the floor needed to be redone. There was some sense of urgency on getting floor done, because, ewwww.
Icky Floor
After being dissed by all three tile people in town, the dude who does general work on the house offered to fix up the floor and install the tile for me. I know that theoretically I could do the tile myself, and that many people do, but I also know that un-theoretically the thought of actually doing it, and how it might look if I did it, and having to, like, cut tile THE RIGHT SIZE AND SHAPE with a wet saw, was pretty overwhelming.
Dude 1 who took out most of the floor came equipped with really strong trash bags, and neatly bagged all of the wood, etc. Dude 2, who is going to put in the tile, removed the tiny portion of raised floor that was left and had the stove on it, and deposited the most enormous, white trash pile o� stuff I have ever seen in my back yard:
Does This Not Scream White Trash?
And the In Process Floor:
If You Look Closely You Can See Former Roommate�s Footprint Right There On the Joint
New Tile!
And I have some pictures of the finished floor, but due to my superior organization skills have somehow misplaced them so stay tuned for finished floor pictures! Now with 100% more grout!
10:56 p.m. - October 17, 2005
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