Day 272 October 6, 2002
We finished installing the floor! Thanks, as always, to Laurie. I'll let her tell the story, in her
own words. BTW, the opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the owner...
Hello all of you cabin-o-philes out there. It's time for another edition of LESSONS WITH LAURIE.
Today, we finish the hardwood floor. First lesson: Your nemesis is the SEAM. It seems that no two
seams may be too close together.
What IS too close together, you ask? Well, too close together is EXACTLY how most seams will fall if
the seam governess is not overseeing progress.
About 8 inches from the previous seam is acceptable, but only in inconspicuous areas. 12-14 inches is
preferred, but one must, of course, consider the NEXT seam, which, although clearly visible, will creep up on you without notice AS SOON
AS YOU BANG IN THE LAST NAIL OF THE CURRENT BOARD.
Remember that cussing is allowed in low volume. Second lesson: DO NOT DROP ANYTHING ON THE NEW HARDWOOD
FLOOR AS IT IS STILL SOFT. I, too, am puzzled by the "hard" description in the name, but just try
dropping a nail gun or (the unsupported section of) a piece of wood one is cutting and SEE WHAT HAPPENS!
Why wait for the floor to be cleaned and polyed before making dents? ("Adds character" is a
possible way of sidestepping the issue...but it only works once. After that, please refer to the cussing
section mentioned above.) Third lesson: Never underestimate the power of the foreman to override any decision
the support team (or Magee) may make. When preparing boards to the proper length necessary for a line of
flooring, do not for ONE MINUTE think that the foreman cannot choose to DISCARD a board based on grain, color,
creed or knots resembling Lincoln's head. It is quite possible, then, that the foreman will grab another board,
(let's just say, for example, a board cut for a DIFFERENT row) cut it to the necessary size, and use it.
This will set off the chain reaction of missing boards which will lead to matching seams, which, as we all
learned in lesson 1, are forbidden. (Ladies-it's best to just get the breasts enlarged and walk around the
cabin naked. This way he'll be distracted, make his own mistakes, and you'll never get a splinter in your hand.)
But I digress. The fourth and final lesson of the day: Chop saw safety. Do NOT cut on an angle. Do NOT look at
anything except the saw (moths, lunch, deer outside) while cutting. NO DANCING or INTENSE LIP-SYNCHING.
NO cutting of household objects such as plastic bags, toothbrushes, or Pringles cans "just to see what
happens." And most of all, do NOT cut if ANY cord (vacuum cleaner, table saw OR chop saw cord itself)
is in the way. The results were, I mean could be, disastrous.
We finished the floor today.