The dining room has never been used more than it has since I converted it into a home gym.
Since the pic above was taken when I first converted the room, I've upgraded the stationary bike to a commercial "Spinning" bike. Other than that, it's a "no excuse to not workout" space and gets used quite often, especially in the winter.
I really wasn't intending to re-do the flooring at this time. We talked about it as a someday or winter project, but sometimes things happen and change happens sooner than you sometimes want.
This is Bella. She is our adorable Coton de Tulear that we had for 10 years, since she was 8 weeks old. She has been a great pet and because she is such a sweet girl, I made the difficult decision to re-home her because I felt she deserved having someone that was home more. Bella went off to her second home with a new mom that I am sure will love her until she is an old girl.
Shortly after she went to her new home, I started noticing an odor coming from this room.
I got down and smelled the floor and ewwwww, dog pee. I had no idea she had been using this room as her potty room. We would occasionally find a poo here and there, but usually only when it was raining. Being such a princess and not wanting to get her feet wet, I thought it was just an occasional thing and never knew she was also urinating in this room.
We moved the VERY heavy gym equipment out into the living room and my carpet guy Michael was coming tomorrow to take a look.
Imagine the horror when we peeled back the carpet. This is actually not even the worst area. Across the front of the room is completely saturated. This was apparently going on for quite a long time.
So, out the carpet goes! Now what? Replace the carpet with something that now won't match the carpet in the room directly across the entry? I really don't want to spend money on temporary carpet.
So that someday project became a right now project...
I made a trip to Costco because they had a laminate that I saw last year I really liked. This isn't the exact one from last year, but it's an even better color. And a HUGE bonus is that it's ON SALE!!
Woohoo! Guess this project is about to happen.
These images came from the manufacturer website. Once I saw it in a room, I really am sold on this color. I have a very similar granite and cream cabinets. It's going to look great in this space.
And instead of just doing one room. It's going to go in the entire kitchen/living room and the hallway.
So, I bought an entire palette. 48 boxes. Enough to cover 900 square feet. The space isn't that big, but I'd rather have more than not enough. I can return what we don't use.
Tac strip, adhesive and cracks. I've got some work to do.
I pulled out the tac strip and when pulling out the nails, it brought with it a large chunk of concrete.
Ugh
I got some concrete patcher to fill in the large divots.
It's concrete and sand. Perfect for this kind of a project. Also notice to the left of this container, there are also some small cracks in the floor. I'll get to those too with some caulk.
Let the patching begin!
I put a little more than needed over the area, and after about 5 minutes, would use the trowel to go back and really flatten it out.
Used concrete caulk to fill in the small cracks.
Phase one of concrete prep in this room is done. After everything dries, I'll paint it with a primer just to be sure there is no odor that comes through the new flooring. I doubt that I'll go to this degree of detail in the rest of the house, but this room needed some TLC. I'm going to have transitional flooring as we go room by room replacing flooring as we go. First on the list is to get this room done so I can get the large treadmill out of the middle of the room!
Concrete patches and caulking are dry. Time to paint the floor!
Done. This will be all dry and ready for the moisture barrier tomorrow morning. Then the flooring can begin!
This is what was recommended by the manufacturer and they carry it at Home Depot.
6ml Polyethylene.
I rolled out the moisture barrier. I found it's easier to trip the excess when it's all folded in layers.
Hardest part so far is keeping this flat. Heavy boxes of flooring were very helpful.
Working my way through the learning curve trying to figure out how these all go together.
Here is the pattern for the slats.
Progress!! I'm about half way. The floor is getting heavier and harder to move around. Now need to install the foam backer rod around the edges so that there is the required 3/8" of space from the wall.
Installed the Foam Backer Rod around the perimeter and continue laying the flooring.
All done! Will need a trim piece to cover the gaps under the baseboards, but ready for gym equipment.
The gym is back in place. Time for a workout!
The rest of the house will be done eventually, but this room was the first priority since I had a treadmill in the middle of my living room. I'll update as we go.
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