Day 9. Saturday. I slept in ’til 9:30. I was hoping to clean and wax today. So, I went to United Rental looking for the floor machine and brushes I needed. I figured I’d go ahead and get a wet/dry vac for the cleaning too. They didn’t know much about the conststancy or material about the brushes they had, so I took them all. And, they didn’t have a wet/dry vac. They don’t carry ’em.
Day 8
Again, up at 8:30 and after a quick balance bar for breakfast I’m at the floor again. This time, I do a little clean up. Our trash piles had been piling up, and I’d left stuff in a bit of a state the previous evening having been so tired.
I call up Joe and he comes over. He does a general mopping with TSP while I scrub extra hard in the cat corners. I still don’t know if it does (did) any good, but I did everything I could think to do there. If this doesn’t do it, little else could.
Day 7.
I got up about 8:30 and was working on the floor in a little over half an hour. Al had called last night in response to my query about the sander. He said it was probably just the bushings and would be an easy repair. Continue to work with it and when it stopped working, take and get it fixed. It probably worked for a good 10 minutes before it gave up the ghost. At Al’s suggestion, I called the helpful rental place (United) and asked where I could get something like that repaired. They suggested Piedmont Tool Repair (who knew?!?), I called ’em up and they said bring it on in. Since I was about to leave, I called Joe to find out what his schedule was. He said he’d driven by the house but not seen lights on or anything so went on to the Store-It-Right. I tell him what I’m up to and he says “Hold on, I’ll be right over.” I show him what we need to do. He indicates that he’s got a sander that may be able to help but he needs to get discs for it from Lowes. So he runs out to Lowes, and I go to Piedmont Tool Repair. We get back at almost exactly the same time, and we start hacking at the floor some more.
Again up around 9:30. Bob was still here. I managed to have perfect timing though. I went downstairs when he was in the shower, and then went to food lion for orange juice (we were out). As I was coming back to Gateway Circle, I saw Bob pulling into the McDonalds for breakfast. So, again a quick breakfast and back to the floor. This time, I did a more systematic sanding slowly back and forth across the entire section of floor. I changed sanding pads 2 or 3 times. Then once that was done, I used a much finer grit sanding pad to go over the entire floor once again (The first time for cleaning, the second time for smoothing). Then it was time to return the buffer/sander. United Rentals is out Avon St. extd. past Mill Creek — a bit of a hike for me. I got back in time to do a little more edge work with the rotary sander before I had to get my shower in so that I could go into the stables and “present” for Bill Sheenan (sp?) a potential web-work client through Bob. I’m back now and hesitating getting back into it since it’s already 6:30, To further complicate things, Al’s rotary sander is not running particularly smoothly, and I don’t want to do any futher damage to it. I called him and left a message asking if there was a way I should clean or oil it. I’ve not heard back. Maybe Joe will have one we can use. He’s going to be here tomorrow morning. Once we finish the sanding, I think the rest will go pretty smoothly. If nothing else, at least I won’t be making more dust!
Day 5.
I arose rather late (9:30?) and came downstairs to find Al doing Yoga in our kitchen. He was doing the “Breath of Joy” After a small breakfast, we started in with the sanding. Al had brought a rotary sander (kind of like a power drill) and a belt sander. We were sanding around the edges where the grinder just couldn’t get. It was slow going. VERY slow going. The image that came to mind was cleaning the statue of liberty with a toothbrush. But, stuff was coming up. The only thing was, we could see that some of it was the same sort of stuff that was still on the main body of the floor. That meant that we’d have to do the whole floor, not just the border. At this point, Al decided we should call the rental place I had not tried to deal with yet (having rented from SunBelt, and called (2x) with no answer from Rent-X), and sure enough, they have a floor buffer that you can attach a sanding pad to in order to clean concrete. People do it all the time. Yeah, it’s in and you can come pick it up. And the total cost will be less than half of what you paid for something from SunBelt that didn’t really do the job. Sigh.
Day 4. I thought of all sorts of ways to begin this entry. “It’s weird cutting lines into your floor with a circular saw.” Or “Man, concrete dust is something else. It really does get everywhere!” Or “I was right, scoring the floor did help me feel like the project is really progressing.” And they are all true to at least some degree. So, here’s the deal.
I got up at 6:45 AM today to go return the grinder to sunbelt rentals. At that time I was in 2-day old clothes, 2-day old smell, and hadn’t shaved for at least as many days. I came home and went back to bed. I got up about 9:30 and started the “real day.”
Santa (Al) comes monday to help. I’m pleased and relieved. But I need to get up and return the scraper thing before 9:00 AM Monday, and need to pick up more supplies both there and at Lowes. This is going to be a long project. It feels like it’s already been a long project. I’m glad I took a bit of a break this evening to play with CJ and watch eXistenZ (a weird “majestic” type movie).
Eve and Tom just left. And this morning/afternoon, we laid out the scoring pattern. There are a couple of tricky spots, but I think it will be pretty straightforward. Joe indicated he might come by this weekend and see what it looks like. If Monday at noon (or shortly after) comes and goes and I’ve not heard from him, I’m going to give him a call. But either way, I’m going to find out if he’d be willing to come score after work Monday or Tuesday. If not, I’ll probably ask CJ+someone (CJ suggested Josh C?) to come stand on a guide board for me, and I’ll cut it with my current saw. I need to get the blade anyway.
Day 2. (AC, Eve & Tom with moving help from bk and CJ) Well, we just completed day 2. It feels like we’ve made a lot of progress, but what remains is still fairly daunting. Today, we finished moving the remainder of the furniture to storage, and started ripping up the carpet. The carpet itself came up quite easily. The padding underneath was glued down around the edges, and the carpet was pressed into tackboard around the edges. As I said, the carpet came up easily. The tackboard was a bit of trouble, but pry bars and jimmies brought it up fairly easily. Some places, the concrete finish popped out with the nails that were holding the tackboard down, so there are some holes along the wall.
The Story:
Our cat is (or at least was) insecure. Or maybe he had a bladder infection. Or maybe he just didn’t like us. Whatever the reason, he peed/marked just about every corner in the living room and dining room (as well as a few in the den). We tried all sorts of cleaners and techniques, nothing seemed to work, at lest not well enough to keep him from re-soiling the areas.
