What on earth are we doing?

I'm mostly content with status quo.....TLE....not so much.  She is always thinking about how to improve something, or re-purpose something.   Usually, if we are making changes to our "home" they are her inspiration.  For a long, long time now TLE has wanted to remove the couch/sofabed from the salon/living area of the coach, redo the wood floors, and add a second recliner similar to mine, only this one would have a "rocking, or gliding" option in addition to the reclining one.....here is what her choice looks like, and sometime Wednesday we will be the proud owners of one just like this.

Bringing these visions to life is our primary reason for being here at my brother's home just south of Salt Lake City.  Dwyer was the one who originally installed the Pergo interlocking wood flooring in our Newell way back in June of 2008 just after we had bought it.  He did a wonderful job, but one thing I insisted on then ended up causing the early demise of that wonderful, expert installation.  The "one thing"?  Well, when he removed the 26 year old carpeting there was a thin carpet pad underneath.  I asked him to leave it as I believed it would deaden the wood floor sound......and it did!  The problem over the past 5.5 years is that the extra flexing at the various joints resulting from the padding cause the joints in the heavily trafficked areas to break.  Of course, in 200 square feet of living space you could say that every square inch is heavily trafficked, right?  Anyway, it was time to redo the flooring.

A number of friends had suggested going with some of the new vinyl "wood" flooring now available.  The vinyl is much better suited to the RV environment.  It doesn't expand, or contract, so you can run it right up to hard surfaces.  It is flexible, obviously, so the flexing of the coach structure will not harm it.  Plus it is easier to install.  Here is what we came up with after visiting the local Lowe's....

It has a wood feel, and looks just like wood........we bought 6 boxes initially good for 180 square feet.....we figure we have somewhere around 160 square feet of floor space to cover, so we'll see if we need another box.

Due to Dwyer's busy schedule right now we agreed to do all the "demo" work...removing the old flooring, removing the couch/sofabed, removing the gas furnace duct work under the sofa, and re-routing some wiring.  Finally we will thoroughly clean the remaining original vinyl moisture barrier installed by Newell so the new vinyl will properly adhere to the old vinyl.  

The first task of the day was to remove the couch, which seemed to me would be the most difficult thing we would do Tuesday......wrong!  The couch came out easily, and we actually got it out the door with little fanfare.  Of course, like all sofabeds, this one is heavy, so we only got it as far as the sidewalk just outside the door.  Rain, however was threatening, so we re-purposed an old skateboard inside Dwyer's garage as an impromptu "dolly" putting one end of the couch on it, and then TLE and I holding the other end as we wheeled the couch back to the trailer where we managed to slide it in out of the weather.

The sofa is gone!

From there we had to remove the old duct work referred to previously, then all the old wood flooring.  Once again that went unexpectedly fast.  As it turned out, the hard task of the day would be removing hundreds of staples used to fasten the old carpet padding to the vinyl flooring....did I say HUNDREDS?  It took TLE and I, in a joint operation, a couple of hours to pry up and remove every one of those staples.  Of course, you know, sitting on a hard, cold floor works wonders for ones 64 year old bones, knees, and joints.  Nevertheless, we ultimately prevailed and here is what it looks like with everything removed.

Since we are still living in our construction zone we had to put everything back together enough so we could live overnight until the next phase begins.....the actual installation of the new vinyl.  We are moving my recliner into the space where the sofa used to be, and my new work station will be just in front of that.  TLE's new recliner will be where mine was on the passenger side of the salon.

We are already blown away by the roomier feeling the salon area has now without the sofa!!

Wednesday morning we will do a thorough cleaning of the vinyl moisture barrier, finish the new wire chase I am building......I think it will look pretty good.....pick up the new recliner, install the new heater register we found at Home Depot, and then start laying the new flooring.   The last part will probably take parts of two days, but we expect to be completely finished by Thursday afternoon!

It was Taco Tuesday at Dwyer and Lori's so we took a few beers from our large beer stash in the Norcold basement "refer" and headed inside.  We finished eating and chatting a little after 8......I never got a nap, and Dwyer had an early morning on Wednesday, so we ended our evening early.  At some point he will help us establish the center line on the floor, and TLE and I will begin to install all the flooring we can without making any cuts.  Dwyer will help us with the trimming and cutting as we get into the corners and edges of the floor, plus do some finish trim work once the flooring is down.

Life is good, and we are excited to see the finished product.....how about you?

Thanks for stopping by!