It would be reaching to say I have any skill in laying hardwood floor at all. It took me several days to lay five rows of wood, and most of my sessions ended with me standing in the garage scraping glue off various tools while I cried, muttering, “I suck” over and over and making sure the dog hadn’t been cemented to the floor.

 

To be fair, this was more than I signed up for. I originally wanted Pergo or some similar photographed laminate product. You install it over an underlayment, no glue.

 

But my husband checked with a neighbor who is a professional contractor, and he recommended engineered hardwood to improve the added value to our house. (Though I have to admit, resale value is the last thing I care about now; mostly I just want to flee, screaming, into the night and pretend I’ve never even SEEN this house.)

 

OK, engineered hardwood it is. Found a smoking deal. But the salespeople and anyone else I talked to said, “Glue.” Better for noise, not so good for application.

 

The problem is this: this is way beyond my skill level. I should not do this. We should do something else, like set fire to the second floor and do that ‘flee, screaming’ thing. But I had already pulled up all the carpeting in the one bedroom and thrown it away by the time we figured this out. And there is no way I can afford to pay someone to do it.

 

Ooops.

 

But my husband came to my rescue when he found out that I was standing in the garage crying and muttering. He is much more experienced at construction than I. While I initially mocked his “Anal Retentive Carpenter” routine (similar to this “Anal Retentive Chef” routine that the late Phil Hartman popularized) it turned out that scraping up all your glue as you worked really speeds things up.

So now I’m relegated to apprentice. I pick out lengths of wood for the next run. I hand the cute carpenter his gear. I mop up glue. I cut wood. (Brave man, my husband, to teach me how to use a table saw. In the last piece I cut, I almost set fire to it with the saw.)

And we’re making progress. Where it took me several days to lay two rows of wood, he is banging one out every ten minutes. We might have the room done in a couple of days. And then only two more bedrooms, a loft, and the stairs to go.

Oh, man. Better keep me away from the table saw for a while.