Do you remember what my basement used to look like?
Skanky carpeting over mildewed foam over glued-down foam over vinyl tile. I chose something called an "insulayment" which combines padding with a vapor barrier to go under the laminate flooring. It's pretty easy to roll out and tape together.
But that's upside down, dumbass. This is better:
Doesn't it look like a swimming pool?
I bribed Scott and Keith, they of the gigantic muscles, with breakfast and pizza to help me install the laminate. They wouldn't even drink the beer I bought them because, apparently, it's unsafe to operate electric saws while drinking.
We started in the alcove. The alcove I still need to paint. Pick carefully when you start laying down flooring! It guides the rest of the installation and EVERYTHING will have to originate from that side of the room henceforth.
You'll want to gather as many tape measures as you can. You'll spend the rest of the day fetching them from the yard because Keith accidentally takes the measuring tape upstairs every time he measures, even though there's one right next to the chop saw, but that's okay.
They call these "special cuts." Keith is masterfully accurate on a chop saw.
Once we got past the weird areas it was just glorious feet and feet of installing whole boards. It went super fast. Bill showed up to help and we were so in a groove that he was relegated to documenting our progress.
I'm totally tempted to buy a mirror and barre and turn this into a dance studio. Couldn't you just pirouette for hours? It took us five hours, start to finish, which I think is pretty damn impressive. I'm so pleased I want to start asking strangers off the street to come down to my basement. But that might be weird.
