Back to California

So I went back down to Mom's for the funeral last weekend. When Mom picked me up at the airport I kind of felt guilty for coming down without the rest of the family. I felt like the Missus and the kids were sacrificing a bit to have me come down. Thus, I felt like I should make my time down there count. I came up with some hair-brained idea to work some more on the old house. I thought it would be good to put a new floor down in the kitchen and dining room. I was thinking that it would just take an hour or two to get the old stuff up and the floor prepped to put down some new linoleum. Everything could be purchased at Lowe's or Home Depot and the project should only take one long day. At least that is what I thought.

Mom, was surprised a bit, but she rolled with it. We went from the airport straight to Lowe's to get started. Serious. We didn't even drop by the house to unload my luggage. Mom decided that she wanted a faux wood that is really durable. It has a 25 year warranty, and it looks really good. Also it is designed to be a floating floor so there is no need to tear up the old linoleum. I was thinking that it would be a breeze.

But then Mom says that she wants to paint too. Ugh, I hate paining. It ended up that Mom, Patrick and I painted until nearly midnight after my sisters left town and then we were up the next morning installing the floor as fast as we could. It took much longer than we thought. We ran into a couple of problems with the carpet junctions. Lucky for me we hit those right about the time that I needed to pack to fly back home. Darn it! Patrick spent the next several days trying to get something to drill into the concrete, which had apparently turning tungsten or something. It was pretty much inpenetratable. Drill bits melting and so forth. Eventually he got it all handled I guess.

Anyway, I am waiting of some pictures of the finished project. I will post some pics here, but everyone needs to realize that the floor was only halfway done and after I left Mom decided to take the red paint all the way down to the floor, instead of a two-tone deal that she had originally chosen. Also needed is the ceiling trim and the floor trim.







So, I am glad that I instigated this little renovation. But I feel bad that Patrick had to end up doing more than his share. It was fun to do though. Now Mom needs to redo those cupboards...maybe on my next trip.