My Angels.....

First of all, Rob is here.  His beautiful wife, Kate is in New Jersey for work for a week, so after they flew into Newark and spending the night with friends, Rob drove down here to help with some of my projects.

Marji's husband, Danny, was coming in on Monday to supervise and work on putting the laminate floor into the bedroom that my boys grew up in.  In 1983, Rudy had built the basement room for them after I bought this house.  We had put down foam backed carpet to warm up the room for them and it has been down ever since.  It has gotten damp with moisture and who knows what was spilled when they were younger and did not clean up well.  It needed to be cleaned but I was afraid it might fall apart.  There were a couple of slices in it where the boys had cut something out and accidentally cut through the carpet.

Rob and I had gone to Home Depot on Friday to order 45 Dri-Core panels for the necessary sub-flooring.  I already had the laminate and underlayment.  We went at the prescibed time and not only was the order not ready, they only had 37 panels.  We took what they had and first thing Monday, I called Home Depot.  I spoke to Dave at the Pro Desk and he checked, apologized (with no actual sorrow for the issue) and said that they were expecting more to be delivered on Tuesday so I could pick it up then.  I thanked him and immediately called back and was connected with Dana, the manager.  She was genuinely sorry, said she would call other stores and find the 8 pieces we were short and deliver it to the house.

Danny arrived a little after 11:00 AM and brought my other angel, his son Darren.  While it was a small room, initially there were all 4 of us working.  Rob and I had cleared the room of everything but the bed and a very heavy file cabinet.  Basically, we left those in the room and just did sections and then moved the furniture out of the way in the finished areas.  Rob had to do some work via his computer, including a conference call, so after helping get things moved and bringing Dri-Core panels downstairs, he was out of the way.  Danny and Darren are very, very good at doing floors, so they were just working away with Danny measuring, Darren cutting and Danny installing.  By 5:30 PM, the finishing touches were going down.  It looks sooooooooo much better in the room and will be much warmer and less damp now.  And just putting those two floors down has increased the resale value of the home.  I will be slowly loading the room.  I am going to take advantage of having everything out to finish painting the room and really brighten it up.

I really have no idea what I would do without Danny and Darren stepping up to the plate and helping me out.  I am hoping that this is now the last BIG project that I will need help with.  I should be able to handle the little things that are left or will be able to figure it out on one of Rob's visits.

I have not taken a picture of the room yet, but I will come back and add it soon, so check back... if there are no pictures when you read this.

Thanks to Danny and Darren for all of the hard, hard work putting down the floor.  And thanks to Rob for the lugging up and down of things until you were sidelined with your calls and conferences.  You are all my angels and I appreciate it more than you know.  Love each of you so much.