tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow

 At the end of the day one of the demo guys called Martin and handed the phone to me.

Martin will be here tomorrow. He will stop buy and assess what he needs to fix, then go and get the wood to fix the subfloor. He suggested I go and purchase the tile I wanted* and he could either pick it up or I could take it with me (I opted to take it, I could see our local merchants looking at him and going "no you are not the person who bought this" and then I'd have to either call or go out there)

(*this was part of the miscommunication I alluded to, but whatever)

I drove out to Lowe's after the guys left. On the way, I realized: Dana has refinished houses, and she offered help. So I called her and asked her what she knew about vinyl tile. I mean, I knew that peel-and-stick probably isn't a great idea in a kitchen, but beyond that....So she actually met me there (she lives close by) and helped me decide

This (the left hand one, the more grey color called Charleston oak) is what I chose:

I was somewhat constrained in my choices - I needed a "take home today" because all the other ones (which were most of them) were "we can have it in 7 days" ("Ain't this place a geographical oddity!")

It was down to this one - which is like weathered barnboard - or a faux- marble. Both are the click-lock kind of tile; they create a "floating floor," which Dana said I'd probably find more satisfactory than one that's glued down given my situation. She said she had one in her house, and it had lasted well longer than the stated life of 15 years, so....right now I just don't want to deal with this again soon. 

She suggested this one over the marble, correctly I think now, because "you have a farmhouse style kitchen and this style would suit it better" (it was also more reasonably priced than the faux marble, which was the top of the price range they had)

So I bought them, a Lowe's guy helped me load them up. I presume Martin will either have an assistant tomorrow, or will be strong enough to unload them on his own (or failing that, I could help)

Anyway, I'm holding out hope this will be done tomorrow. It took the guys pretty much from 9:30 to 3:30 to demo (with a 45 minute lunch break) but that was a LOT - breaking out the ceramic tile, and the ugly old linoleum (or tile? I hope it wasn't asbestos tile) that was under it:

As I said on Twitter: it takes a lot for me to find vintage stuff ugly, and I find this ugly. I think that's two layers there, a paler one that was underneath and the greenish one on top. Or maybe the greenish one was just stained, I don't know. Anyway: do not like. 

Most of the tile for sale now, at least in a mass-market type place is either faux-wood or faux-stone. You don't find a lot of house-grade tile with designs or patterns any more. 

Anyway, I really REALLY really hope this is done tomorrow. At least the loudest part is done - it was unbelievable how loud the tile removal was, and then the chopping/scraping of the damaged subfloor material after that. 

Friday is faculty meeting and Saturday is the memorial service for the retired botanist I knew from AAUW who passed away earlier in the summer. And then Monday classes start. I'm a little....unhappy....that I didn't get just one nice solid day to go do something fun (like go to Chickasaw) but I guess that's life.