Trees House: Laundry area floor suddenly important

Some might call it work avoidance, but on October 21, 2024, I decided that I was done with the ratty, worn-out carpet in the hall. See Carpet Be Gone.

I put down Ram Board, but three months later, almost to the day, I decided that the Ram Board was not going to last forever and I had to forgo the work I was doing on the plans to address it. I didn't have to address it, but this is how I preserve my mental health--I just humored myself. Sure, this is the most important thing.

Exposed jackets, am I right? I'm asking--am I right?

I biggered the problem (as the Lorax's Once-ler said), deciding that the open jacket hooks would be much better as an enclosed Ikea wardrobe with a shelf for laundry supplies. Still thinking about that decision, but it's done.

Floor & Decor just opened nearby, and I was curious how a floating laminate floor would work, so, poof, I bought some flooring (at Lowe's, by the way) for $2/square foot. One trick I learned from YouTube is to sort the box by pattern so you don't use the same pattern nearby.

QuickStep Studio in Glenwood Oak, sorted

Then I bought a white Brimnes wardrobe from Ikea. Two 90-pound boxes should have been a clue. Not like a desk or a bookcase. To put on the right side, I had to connect it to a bunch of parts dangling from the left side--it was impossible. So I built a stand to hold the parts in place--bingo.

I'm a clever guy, right? Read on.

Just as I'm patting myself on the back, I realized that the floor is sticking out past the sides. A little bit of bare particleboard would be visible. Reluctantly, I took the whole thing apart and flipped the floor piece 180 degrees. Mo' betta, as Jim Poole used to say. The instructions said nothing about making sure the floor piece was one way or the other. The custom stand still helped.

The flooring installed easily--it locks together like a toy--but there's a lot of cutting and fitting to be done. Also, banging on one edge for a tighter fit tends to loosen all the other boards if you're not careful. You Tube tip: put in temporary screws to keep boards from sliding toward the wall that you're supposed to stay 1/4" away from.

I also wanted to try out the baseboard I'm thinking of standardizing on throughout the house--something taller, with an ogee edge. (I'm still going for the white woodwork Shutters at the Beach vibe.) And--oof--that A/C register. Because the register is right at floor level, it prevents an ordinary vent from fitting.

Brilliant carpenter that I am, I built a frame for the baseboard (and shoe) to die into.

That's 2x2 poplar with an ogee edge routed all around

Remember that that wall had 1/8" masonite glued to it. I pulled it off in 2014, leaving blotches of glue and decided that the wall would need new drywall. Then I painted it gray, right over the glue. So, this is not a candidate for wall of the year. I found a 5-1/4" MDF baseboard that I liked, with a little shoe molding to match elsewhere in the house and Bob's your uncle.

"A little caulk and a little paint \ Makes a carpenter what he ain't."

I put off extending the floor into Bath #2, mostly because I would need to remove the existing crappy baseboard and either reinstall the old crappy baseboard afterward, or figure out how to do it with beautiful new 5-1/4" baseboard in a room I know I'm going to remodel.

Thresholds! This tiny hall has 5 thresholds, 6 including the washer/dryer. At the breezeway, we were up 1", so I went with a wide piece of oak that I hit with 3 layers of polyurethane. I bought a countersink bit to recess the screws. The basic "wood" threshold that Lowes sells next to the flooring worked great at the transitions to the old oak flooring, but not at the tiled kitchen. I found a vinyl product on Amazon that seems fine. It comes with peel and stick, which I augmented with Lexel. "That's not going anywhere."

Less than a month after deciding to replace the Ram Board, I've got a real floor.