Floors and Desk Fittings

Having skipped the weekend... I didn't, actually. But I also didn't manage daily art, blogging here (I always do MGC, at least), or anything creative. Instead, I was being creative in entirely different ways. There's something to be said for sheer manual labor, broken by pleasant interludes of spending time with family or a friend. It takes your mind off whatever you were worried about, and unless you get yourself to the point of nervous exhaustion, you sleep like a baby. Chalk me up for one night of the latter, followed by one of the former. I felt like I was racing the clock, yesterday, trying to get it all done. I did, but it made for a bad night trying to switch off the brain and get some rest afterwards. Yes, I know. I know I need to slow down and rest more. But I have obligations. To others, to myself, and I'd be unhappy if I sloughed those off, too. Of the options, getting it All Done sounded like the better one. And my sore muscles today are making me smile, knowing that it was worth the passing pain I'll be stretching out of this week. 

For the curious: we are renovating the Little House I was using as my writing office, back into a home for the Ginja Ninja. It's planned to be a launch pad for her, and in two years, the Jr Mad Scientist. It's been a slow motion project of cleaning, painting, but we got to the biggest project of all this weekend with the kitchen floor. Imagine sheet lineoleum that had been glued down in approximately 1970... if you're me, stop a second and ponder that was fifty years in the past. Can't possibly be that long. *checks math* yes, good gravy, it can be. Anyway, whatever they glued this stuff down with, I want some. If you want something to never ever move again, that was the Stuff. The linoleum was laid down over oak strip flooring, which we recovered in the rest of the house from it's protective shroud of green shag carpeting and some kind of pad that had long since turned back into gritty black dust. In the kitchen? We had only one option. Cover it up and pretend it never existed. Which led to two days and three process steps. Mixing up a thin cement-like self-leveling compound and squeegeeing that down. Then after letting it dry for about 18 hours, painting it with a latex-based primer that smelled like glue, before finally pressing down peel-and-stick vinyl tiles over it all. It's not perfect. Far from it. But in comparison to the floor that was older than I am and had been far less well taken care of? Worlds better. It's so light and airy in that kitchen now! 

The process wasn't, of course, as painless as all that. We had to move all the furniture and appliances - no fridge, thank goodness, it's not there yet - out of the room, clean the nasty floor thoroughly, and then I discovered that the bags of compound should really be mixed up with a heavy drill (don't have that, ours is kind medium weight) and a special attachment. Didn't have that, either. What we had was me, a metal rod, and a lot of determination. There were some lumps, although squishing those up with (gloved!) hands was kind of fun. Also, it's not exactly self-leveling. We had some hummocks in spite of the squeegee work, which had to be fast as it was setting up quickly. But it got done, and the tiles seem to be adhering in spite of the uneveness, which is greatly reduced from the before compound state. 

On top of the floor work, we had a company dinner (not nearly as grand as it sounds, the First Reader works with a very small team), and I went desk-shopping. Again? You may be thinking. Yeah. Again. Turns out if you pick the wrong thing... and look. It's not like there are fitting rooms for furniture. You can't slide into a selection of chairs with worksurfaces in front of you, until you find that perfect piece that streamlines your process and makes you look great, all while being comfy as all get out. Plus, it has pockets! Or drawers and pigeonholes, in the desk equivalent. Besides, my version of furniture shopping rarely involves a showroom. I'm both thrifty, and a snob. I like antiques. I'll settle for vintage, but really? I want wood. Actual, solid, heavy, feels marvelous and hasn't been desecrated with that chalk and wax crap that's all the rage (I cry, some times, at the listings on marketplace of lovely furniture absolutely destroyed by idiots 'upcycling' wonderful pieces into garbage). So yesterday I bought two desks. One of them is mine, one for the Jr. Mad Scientist, as a 'your sister is moving out and you'll have a room to yourself!' gift. Will mine work? Only time will tell. I did a lot of measuring, so hopefully I've calculated correctly for fit of me, the laptop, the drawing tablet, a scanner, and all kinds of storage for the random desk crap I accumulate. 

We need desk fitting stations. Except it takes me about a week to fully adjust to a new one and figure out if it works, or really hurts. I can just imagine a shop's reaction to 'can I bring in my laptop for an hour or two every day for a week...?'

Before shot of crumbling linoleum: 

one of the Floof Princesses on the self-leveling underflooring after drying.

The new floor looking all bright and shiny. Some cleanup left to do, but this is a good stopping point for the weekend.