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Rory McClannahan

Ten boxes of SmartCore Putnam Oak laminate flooring have been sitting under the dart board and near the dog kennel for more than a year. I put them there on purpose, the leftovers from a bathroom project completed last year. I’d acquired the flooring from a work friend and a pretty good price.

I’ve had a flooring project in mind, but I needed 17 more boxes of the stuff to get the job done. For a year, I wasn’t sure of the extent of the project and, therefore, didn’t get it done. Or even started. Such is the travails of the average American homeowner – a lot of projects get put off until the funding and willpower is there.

I’m proud to say that the stack of boxes is down to three. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the blue home improvement store that sells the Putnam Oak SmartCore flooring has no matching planks available. I have not been able to determine whether this company no longer sells that variety of flooring, or if it is just on back order. Getting a straight answer out of their experts – if you can find one – is very difficult. Regardless of the reason, it is apparent that I must move on from Putnam Oak.

Still, I’m too Scottish to let 10 boxes of flooring go to waste, so I came up with an alternative plan – one room could handle a slight difference in color and texture than the rest. The plan, then, became tearing out the worn carpeting in the room that is my home office and lay the flooring. It’s not a huge room – a 150 square foot rectangle – so there is no weird posts and cabinets to go around.

I figured a weekend would be sufficient to get it done. That’s about all I can stand for the house to be a mess. I’ve been getting pretty good about these sort of projects, except I tend to wear out before completely finishing. It has to be done, though. For the first 14 years that I lived in this house, I lived as if I was a renter. I hadn’t made any changes and put any paint on any wall and lived with ugly carpeting, ugly wall paper and ugly linoleum flooring.

When I found myself not having to worry about anyone else’s tastes, I decided it was time to makeover the house to my liking. The first room was the kitchen, which was a good place to renovate during my five months of unemployment six years ago. I spent weeks sanding and painting the cabinetry and found that working on such a project was a good way to deal with the turmoil my life had become. It soon became apparent that I would not stop with the kitchen, it would become my mission to paint every room and replace furniture that needed replacing. It was a cathartic way to deal with the grief of a lost career and lost marriage.

Now that the healing is complete, my projects have more to do with getting rid of the old and worn and making my living space appealing to me. Your home should be where you are most comfortable, right? Even if it means having your house look like a disaster area during the length of a project. The key is to not to bite off more than you should.

The flooring for the home office was the easy part. You probably have assumed that a guy like me owns a lot of books. I don’t think it’s that many, but some people might believe otherwise. Don’t worry, I won’t judge you (much) for not having a lot of books yourself. Regardless, there were three loaded bookcases that hade to moved out, as well as a desk, an old recliner, a little wood dresser filled with old cables, and a table that had to be located somewhere. Add in a work surface brought in from the shed and tools, and you get the idea that the house was a mess.

There is a good side to having a messy house – at least for me. It provides inspiration to get things done and back to normal. I’m happy to say that everything is almost back to where it belongs and I still need to install baseboards. I’ll get to that stuff, but right now I’m just tired.

If you didn’t already know, a middle-aged body isn’t really made to work on the floor. I already knew about the bad knees and back, but I didn’t know my hips are as worn out as they are. I suppose if there were video of me rolling around of the floor working, some might consider it high comedy. At one point, I’d gotten a leg lifted over the other and trapped against the wall. To get out of this, I had to roll over on my back and unfold myself. I think I kind of looked like a fat turtle rolled over on his back, which was how I got a piece of carpet padding in my hair.

The whole job may not be complete, but it is usable. I know it might be kind of odd to some people, but I’m looking forward to going through and shelving the books. It gives me a chance to touch each one and maybe thumb through the pages. It also might seem odd to people who know me that my books have never been very well organized. Usually, they are grouped by shape and binding. Paperbacks go together according to their size. I hope to change that.

Of course, I could just be dragging my feet in completing the home office project, because once that is done, I’ll feel compelled to move onto the next phase of carpet removal and replacement.

Maybe I should just hire someone to do it. I think I’m getting too old for this shit.