The evening before Hal and I had finally read the boxes, all
14 of them piled up in the living room for the last several weeks. Remove the
contents for 72 hours prior to installing for the wood to acclimatize……WHAT????
To late the deed had been done.
I’d gone to 7 flooring showrooms in town to check out the
stock, quality and learn the business. I knew nothing after 2 weeks on the job.
Sure I’d learned that there was a grade to wood depending on how much grain you
were interested in seeing names like– Tavern, Junior, Bare – meant you saw it
all then there was Mill Rate – where you saw some grain, then there was Best
and Select where the grain had been stripped out of the wood.
I felt like I was teaching Biology 30 once again, learning
all the variety of trees I’d just seen in Tennessee some of which were being
sold here. There was Oak, Ash, Maple, Fir, Cherry, Balsam, Birch, Pine, Walnut,
Wedge, Willow, Aspen, Beech, Elm, Poplar, and Sandalwood just to name a few.
Did you want prefinished or not, spice, stained or rough matte? Maple alone had
16 choices of color and then you had to decide who to order from there were no
fewer than 8 companies within each showroom. It is a labyrinth that only the
hearty should tackle.
The hardness scale was simple enough yet the humidity was
anyone guess. Between 7 shops not one was consistent on where to set the meter
in our home, it ranged from turning it off completely to 50% all year round.
Hal and I weren’t interested in opening a conservatory garden just yet. With
little time to play around with the dial we choose 25%.
When I brought home the 2 X 3 foot pieces of wood samples to
view what was vogue, in style and selling in new homes, again the fashion was
as varied as Prentice caucus. What you
brought home didn’t elicit the true color. We were routing for Hickory as it
was harder than Prentice integrity yet once seen on a large floor Hick was how
we were feeling. So Maple it was – Mill Rate- which meant you saw some grain
yet it wasn’t dancing with knots. The charm, class and there lack of in some
establishment was pretty consistent, except when it came to Windsor Plywood and
Timbertown.
When we finally chose to work with Timbertown the boys knew
me by name after my forth visit. Bashful in an unfamiliar environment I
meandered around to find the products I needed with superlative advice. Price,
quality, service and a smile was what I received. No the wood wasn’t free, yet
we felt relatively comfortable until Sean found out the price.
“Man that is expensive they should have given you a better
rate.”
“Sean I got the 10 % discount and then bargained for the
women’s rate and got another 4 % off, I thought that was pretty good.”
There was always a crux in flooring, the cold air return,
the lack of 90 degree angles to a square room, bowed wood, curved wood, and our
bodies. That was the hardest crux of all. I was so excited it probably took a
good 4 hours prior to comprehending that my spine wasn’t designed to move in
this space and shape.
Sean was a professional while he moved along with the airgun
hammer thumping nails into the wood, I scurried along like a scandalous
politician trying to keep pace placing boards into place. I held a piece of
wood between my thumb and forefinger and hammered the wood into place just ahead
of Sean. The only problem was that I wasn’t able to run fast enough to find
wood lengths whose seam wouldn’t line up with the previous row. I blew it once
and the zigzag pattern was visible.
“Kathryn, Dan is going to see this and he won’t be please,
tell him you did it”?
“No problem Sean, don’t want to ruin your reputations, mine
hasn’t begun, at least not in this industry.”
Secondly, I wasn’t able to find 7 new pieces of wood in time
to get back and gently, which is an exercise I had to learn graciously from
Sean’s, tap them into place before Sean was upon me. My thumb and forefinger twitched
uncontrollably for 3 days after this drill. Massaging it during church service
was an indication that things weren’t going well.
Then the questioning began. I’d seen so many you tube
video’s I felt I had to comprehend why he wasn’t dragging the gun along the
floor as they had shown to conserve energy.
“Kathryn, see this pad on the bottom. I’ve placed it there
so the tiny bits are not scratching the floor. If we drag the machine a tiny specks
might scratch the floor.”
This became my first and last question. I rested in his
expertise, much like a wise courtesan resolves to unravel in the company of
great lover.
By late afternoon the curvature of my back was permanently hunched.
I texted Hal to come home immediately forgetting the parent that so desperately
needed to see him, I was on my last leg. 10 hours with two short breaks did the
trick. At 3:00 p.m. when Sean said he had to be gone by 5:30 I looked at the
floor and then at him, said nothing and moved.
Sean’s alacrity was still engaged. “Look Kathryn a bird’s
eye.”
I looked at the piece of wood without the joy he was showing
me.
“Don’t you see, some people seek out these pieces and demand
an entire floor made of these?”
Our speed had depleted, the rambunctious conversations had
diminished to grunts on my part. He handed me wood, I placed it in and we
worked for the remainder of the afternoon in silence.
When Hal did arrive I was overjoyed to teach him what to do,
yet he wasn’t picking up the technique and with a mere meter to go to the back
wall, it resided in finishing while he lifted the heavy boxes for me and found
wood. I would continue hammering yet in his presence there was some relief. His
joy and excitement at the final product was jolting me back to reality, as my
mind was now wandering to Japanese bath houses, saunas, massages and
acupuncture.
Sean left to volunteer firefighting training before we could
fully appreciate his work. I fell onto the floor yearning to sob yet my bones
were literally too tired to weep. If the notion to do this again ever came upon
me regardless how enthusiastic I wouldn’t……find a carpenter…if you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment