Campbell River

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Planning My Second Klondike Summer

I can’t believe that it’s already time to start planning my trip back north! I’ve ordered Terri and Mike Church’s book that I regretted not having last year as well as the 2010 Milepost.

Planning my route north this year is such a different experience since I am not about to set off into the unknown!

The ferry to Prince Rupert is probably not going to happen and there’s no way I’m taking the Sea to Sky highway again, so it’s pretty sure that I will be going to Prince George via Hope and highway 97 like I did last spring. From there, I’m really undecided as to whether I’ll take the Cassiar like I did in the fall, or the Alaska highway like I did last spring. I’m leaning towards doing the Alaska highway again and then doing the Cassiar in the fall. Have I fallen prey to routine?! 😀

While I’d love to stop off in favourite spots, like the Chasm, again, I’m hoping that the Church’s book will help me see this trip with new eyes.

For the little I did this winter, the season has flown by exceptionally fast. I didn’t see much on Vancouver Island, but other things that happened more than made up for that. I mean, I was in the right place at the right time to give my business the boost it really needed to take off. Financially, I won’t see the results of that until May, but that’s perfect since that’s the month I’ll be putting in the fewest working hours. It seems that I will simply need to return to Vancouver Island and the BC coast at some later date to do more ‘island hopping. As it is, I do plan to go to Victoria for a long weekend in late March or early April, so there is more tourism to come!

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The Find (and Deal) of the Century

This afternoon, I got the floor up in the dressing room and began to make inroads in the kitchen. I need to make further inroads before I can consider putting down more flooring in the dressing room. I’ll work on that tonight and then get the dressing room floor in tomorrow. My work was interrupted more than once by my need to attend to splinters.

I stopped at about 3:30 to go and check out a used furniture store in Willowpoint to see if they might have the lingerie chest I need to finish up the dressing door. Finding the right item would be real motivation to work late into tonight getting the floor in so that I could then deal with my clothes. I need to do that to make progress in the kitchen. Picture what you will. 😀

The store didn’t have a suitable dresser, although one came close to the right dimensions. Unfortunately 5″ too much is way too much in an RV. 🙁 But it was worth it to go there when I found an item that was on my ‘unrealistic wish’ list.

Since I’m putting the dinette table at counter height, I planned to get a stool or two to sit at. I had a hankering for a certain style popular in the 1950’s that doubles as a step-stool and would be ideal for getting into my upper cabinets and maybe even the loft. I did some research and found out that those stools are rare and expensive now as they are a hot item. I decided I wasn’t going to expend any energy in looking for one.

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this at the store:

It just needs a good scrubbing with an SOS pad, a reupholstering (easy, the padded pieces are screwed in), and new non-slide material on the steps.

The lady let me have it for $20, taxes included.

This was after I picked up another small item for the study (more on that later once I figure out what I’m going to do with it) that was marked $9.95 and which she let me have for $9, taxes included.

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Calling It a Day

I feel like I didn’t get anything done today because the flooring in the dressing room still isn’t in. That said, I haven’t be sitting around!

The weather was beautiful so I took everything out of my large pass-through compartment, set aside things I want to donate, and then loaded up one of my large RubberMaid tubs with all my cold weather gear. While gathering all of that together, I made up another bag of things to donate. I then reloaded the pass-through and came inside to tackled the floors.

This project has officially turned into a nightmare. 🙂 It is a huge job to get as neat an edge as possible near the walls. I have to pry up a board, snap it as close to the wall as possible, and then use a hammer and chisel to reduce the protruding edge to splinters that I pull out with pliers. It’s a small and awkward space to work in and I am so sore from twisting my body into a position from which to inflict maximum damage on the wood. My dad’s chisels are getting quite a workout!

did you know that in French chisels are called ‘wood scissors’?

Tomorrow, I will focus on getting that floor done and then move on to finishing up my study.

I also have some furniture shopping to do, but I think I will need to go to Nanaimo for that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find an affordable lingerie chest in Campbell River? And how many people don’t know what such a thing is? It’s a tall, skinny dresser. Guess where I’m going to be putting it.

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New Allure Flooring in the Study

What. A. Day.

Laying floor is a lot easier when your home is empty. I tried to pile stuff as out of the way as I could, but it was really hard. I don’t have that much stuff, but it didn’t feel like that at all today!

First thing I did was move everything to the passenger side of the study. I laid two planks and then reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t do the floor in the study without pulling up the flooring in the dressing room. That’s what took the better part of the day. The middle planks came up easily, but the edges were a nightmare to deal with since they went under walls, the vanity, the shower… My strategy ended up being using a chisel to score the wood, a pry bar to snap the board as close to the edge as possible, and then a combination of the chisel and pliers to get as smooth an edge as possible. I pulled up only as much floor as I needed to get the study done and will continue tomorrow.

Even with all that effort, I’m glad I pulled up that wood floor. It had reached its peak. There was water damage right through to the subfloor near the shower. Nothing major, but I could see how water had infiltrated. I also found a speckling of mould behind the trim along the base of the shower. Yup, this was one major project that I can completely justify.

Once the floor in the study was done, I had the desk left. My initial idea isn’t going to work. I had wanted to simply cut out a notch in the top to accommodate the little pop out in the corner, but the way the desk is built won’t allow that without major work on my part. For that much effort, I’d rather go out and buy a little secretary or something. I decided to just reassemble the desk with a gap between it and the wall and then sleep on the problem since I have to do a couple of hours of work tonight.

Allure is incredibly easy to install. What I love most about it is that all you need to cut it is a sharp knife and a metal straight edge. You can get down on your hands and knees with a plank and a piece of paper to use a as a template (see below) and do all your cutting and fitting right there.

The only thing that’s really finicky about it is that it attracts dust since the planks are held together with a glue strip. Since I left the dressing room half done, I had to lay down wax paper (provided in the the box) to cover all the glue strips and then weigh that all down to keep the cats off it.

I’m pretty pleased with how the installation turned out. The wood look wound up being more forgiving than the tile. I found some edges aren’t quite tight enough, but I’ve never seen a wood floor without gaps so I figure the small imperfections make the vinyl look even more like real wood.

Tomorrow, I’m going to focus on getting the computer area buttoned up and then take advantage of the promised sunshine to get a mountain of stuff out of the rig. That should free up enough space for me to finish up the dressing room floor on Thursday and start on the kitchen. Having used a box and a half already, I can tell that my flooring budget is going to go through the roof (my estimates are now seven boxes), so I’ve decided that painting is definitely not going to happen in Campbell River. That’s okay, the climate’s not right for it anyway.

All you need is Allure flooring, a metal straight edge, a sharp knife (with lots of blades), and pliers (not shown). Kneepads are a nice luxury. :)

All you need is Allure flooring, a metal straight edge, a sharp knife (with lots of blades), and pliers (not shown). Kneepads are a nice luxury. 🙂

First strip. I made the right choice. :)

First strip. I made the right choice. 🙂

Getting the measurements for a short strip.

Getting the measurements for a short strip.

Using the template and straight edge to ensure a straight cut.

Using the template and straight edge to ensure a straight cut.

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The planks were held with these little tacks. I didn't even need tools to rip up the middle ones.

The planks were held with these little tacks. I didn’t even need tools to rip up the middle ones.

Pulling up the middle part was easy.

Pulling up the middle part was easy.

Good shot of the gap between the floor and the bottom of the wall.

Good shot of the gap between the floor and the bottom of the wall.

Crossing into the dressing room.

Crossing into the dressing room.

ALL DONE!!! Well, in the study.

ALL DONE!!! Well, in the study.

Gap between the wall and the desk.

Gap between the wall and the desk.

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Examining the Hardwood

Whew. Tonight’s project took me close to an hour and you’d never know it.

Before going at the floor with a pry bar, I wanted to know what I was dealing with. Was it a floating floor? Was it lying on the same level subfloor as the previously-carpeted rooms? Did it have some sort of underlay?

What I did was use a chisel to carefully remove a top layer of floor, roughly 2″ by 4″ in a discreet corner. I made this piece as neat as possible so that it could be replaced if I got to the subfloor and decided that the hardwood was staying. I then chiseled one thin layer of wood after another until I got to a stiff plastic opaque vapour barrier. Under that, I found the same subfloor as in the study.

I’m therefore good to go for the removal of the hardwood. It still feels SO wrong, but it really is the right decision in the long run.

The biggest difficulty is that motorhome walls are the last thing to be installed, so the hardwood runs under the walls. I will have to use a combination of chisel and pry bar to remove those boards, but the boards in the middle of the room will come apart with a minimum of fuss.

The forecast is for sun all of my weekend (Tuesday through Thursday) and if this holds I will be SO happy!!! I’m going to do like last week and push up my bedtime to get up early enough to add several hours of sunlight to my day. I’d like to have all three boxes of flooring installed by Wednesday night, which should take me to the kitchen. I’ve decided to not go with my usual habit of doing trim last and instead doing the trim as I go along. There’s no point reusing any existing trim as it is all a weird hodgepodge of materials and sizes. I plan to go with a uniform style in wood. Most of the trim now is cardboard, which makes no sense in wet rooms!

There’s no time to waste. I am expected in Dawson three months from today!