Plan B

All week, I’d been focused on finishing the dining room floor.  It wasn’t too terribly difficult to do once the nails and petrified dirt had been removed and the boards were sent through the table planer.  Then it was just a matter of laying them back down.  Some ends had tongue and grooves, others didn’t.  Some boards were thicker than others.  It was sort of an intriguing puzzle to get them all back together again.

. . . the floor came together.  Sure, it will need a bit of sanding and then a few coats of polyurethane after we stain it, but I was getting so close to finishing that I could see the end in sight!

I really need to keep telling myself that every project will take twice as long and cost twice as much as I originally anticipate, then I wouldn’t be so discouraged if I did happen to get done faster and under budget.  Anyway, I returned home after a volunteer commitment on Saturday just in time to kiss the girls goodnight.  The sun was setting so I hurried and measured, cut and arranged the wood out in the yard.  My pile of useable wood boards had diminished over the week and I was so proud of myself and how much I’d gotten done in so short a time.  If everything went the way I planned, the floor would be finished on Saturday, Sunday would be the much needed glorious day of rest and Monday, I’d head to the hardware store to rent their sander for the day.

I don’t quite understand how tearing up the floorboards and laying them down in the opposite direction means that all of a sudden, they don’t cover the same amount of space.  It’s an enigma that I can’t begin to comprehend.

I couldn’t just stop at the six pieces of wood I needed to finish the dining room either.  It was going to be torn up eventually, so I decided that today was the day.  It also went a lot faster when I realized I could just toss the wood out into the yard from the window.  What a time saver!

So, yes, now I have to use Plan B.  The dining room floor is on hold until the living room is sanded and painted.  Then I’ll sand, stain and seal the dining room floor, followed by some much desired carpet for the living room.  After that, it’s just putting the trim back up!  Well . . . after that’s planed, sanded, stained and re-varnished.  I guess that light at the end of the tunnel was just a mirage.  Sigh.  I am so gullible sometimes.