Floored Again

Murphy’s Law is generally quoted thus:

If anything can go wrong, it will.

Complete tosh, of course, since there’s always something that can go wrong but our flooring episode was beginning to make me doubt my rationality. [Francine, of course, has always doubted my rationality.]

While we’re on the subject, Francine had scarpered off to Harris and Lewis and left me with nought for company but a varied selection of fillers, paints, paint brushes and roller sleeves. As if we weren’t already doing enough concurrently, I’ve been redecorating two bedrooms as well. While the cat’s away the mice will labour. Our few unaffected rooms are filled to the rafters with displaced paraphernalia. Moving around is, shall we say, a challenge.

Be that as it may, after what seems like an eon, on Tuesday 02 October our replacement flooring was delivered with a view to its being fitted on the Thursday. In what is already an overcrowded house, I had to find somewhere to store the flooring, too.

Enter the redoubtable Mr. Murphy: the suppliers delivered the wrong glue to Flooring Man. Now there’s something that one might not have considered as a potential glitch, the wrong glue. Wrong type of snow or wrong leaves on the line, yes, but wrong glue? No doubt Covid-19 was to blame, like everything else. The right glue was sourced from another supplier but it put the fitting back to Friday.

Sure enough, on Friday morning, the long-awaited fitting of Floor v2.0 commenced after its initial false start. The guys had to work around our newly delivered fridge and a washing machine which was still in situ.

A little after midday, our favourite Builder Men unexpectedly pitched up to build a new, raised entrance door step. [Another of Francine’s brainwaves to stop people tripping over a rather high door sill.] So, the main entrance door would be out of commission. No problem, Flooring Men could come and go using the back door. So, not quite Murphy this time, then.

One of our little side projects, my Man Cave, having been painted was also to get its new floor in the form of yet more vinyl wood planking. Hopefully that would resist the wear from my scooting about on an office chair.

We had four Flooring Men beavering away. One of them eventually set about my Man Cave at about 15:00. First job was to fit flooring grade plywood (whatever that is) which was a shade over half the price of the flooring itself.

Eventually, at 17:30 our Flooring Men swarmed out of the house and all was done. We had Floor v2.0.

Well, very nearly all but not quite. When I came to hit the sack after a hard day watching other people work, behind the dining area door I spotted a small section, about 25x10cms, with glue but no vinyl flooring. “Hello again”, Mr. Murphy, “I’ve missed you”. Lurking behind an open door, this tiny section clearly got overlooked. Floor v2.0 needed a maintenance release. A swift text message secured a correction appointment.

So, here we are on Tuesday 13th October, one week after it was supposed to be fitted, and we finally have what I believe is a completed Floor v2.1. Franco much prefers the look of Floor v2.1 to v1, though the journey to it was a tad traumatic.

Now bugger off Murphy!