Beating the blahs with a new floor

I was in quite a funk this afternoon and early evening. I won't go into why. A trip to town to pick up vinyl flooring didn't shake it, and I ended up wasting a lot of time today feeling sorry for myself. I finally went out to the cat facility, hoping ripping, tearing, and laying new floor would help. It didn't. So I came in and cleared out some email for work for about two hours, and that seemed to do it. Back out to the barn I went, but by then it was midnight. Nonetheless, three far-more-cheerful hours later, brand new floor!



I had been kind of concerned that a darker floor might be a bit drab, but it's actually quite warm. I like it.

This area is the first section of the cat facility I fixed up, six or seven years ago. The original flooring I put down was of very high quality, and I actually built the cat run walls right over it. I was really broke back then, and the molding I used, and the nails I fastened it with, were pretty cheap. There was no saving the molding: I ripped it all out in pieces. I have a ton of vinyl mopboard to replace this with, but I'm not sure I have enough adhesive...in fact I'm sure I don't. So it's back into Home Depot tomorrow for more, so that this time cat litter doesn't squeeze in tiny cracks between the molding and the floor.

About seven years ago I built that facility, and tonight I was ripping it apart. It was rather odd. It will be a huge improvement: no old curled up vinyl flooring with cat litter sneaking beneath the corners! It was starting to look pretty trashy in there.

Here is the original floor, about two years ago when it was still looking nice:



And speaking of trashy, I've left a mess out there. I threw all the molding and vinyl pieces down the stairs to deal with tomorrow.

Mary, Sara K., Christy and Gordon....thanks! Your donations helped with a much-needed upgrade!