Flor installed in the play area

Since she picked them out, my daughter insisted on organizing and arranging the Flor for her play area.  I think she did a pretty good job.  Much to her chagrin, I put on all of the "stickers" that hold the tiles together after she went to bed.  I have patience but I don't think I have the kind of patience to walk a six year old with a sticker fetish through that process.  

More Flor

When I got the Flor tiles for the basement, I left two areas un-carpeted.  One of these was my daughter's play area.  The other day, she decided to stage a strike of sorts.  She said that she refuses to play in the new "play area" because it is too cold and will only play there if she gets a rug too.  No problem.  I would have gotten her something for the floor there to start off with but I know how picky she can get about color, etc.  Yesterday, we took her to the Flor store, where she picked out her own Flor tiles in the colors she wanted.  Actually, I should correct this.  She WANTED to get a fairly bright striped rainbow-colored tile with matching plain primary colored tiles.  We don't have a problem with rainbows per se but we thought it best not to go too crazy and so we persuaded her to choose something else.  Instead, she went for a composition of all blues. 

It doesn't looks so bad but I have to admit that I am glad you can't see the carpet from any place in the room EXCEPT when you are in the play area.  The actual tile should arrive in a couple days; just in time for her to have friends over this weekend. 

Basement is Finished

I put some of the finishing touches on the basement this weekend.  The major piece was to assemble the Flor carpeting system.  I chose two different types of tiles for the basement.  At the office area, I chose a series of colors in the "Feelin' Groovy" pattern to harmonize with the colors in the chips in the epoxy floor.  I don't think it came out too bad for a guy is genetically disposed to color-blindness.

The Flor system is pretty simple to assemble.  I did it a little different than they suggest though.  They have you lay out the floor and then lift up corners and use their "stickers" to hold things together by placing them under where you lift up.  It was a bit more cumbersome but I was able to achieve a tighter fit of tiles by assembling the entire rug upside down and adhering stickers on the back.  Some of it comes loose when you flip it over but I still think the results were better.   It was a little trickier with the carpet I chose for the TV area.  There, I used a higher pile and the pile is prone to getting stuck between the two tile's backing, making a small gap.  With a little patience, I was able to get rid of this though.

Of course, the final installation is not how I planned so now I need to order one more tile for it to be finished.  We are keeping the saw-tooth look at the bathroom end but want to square it off at the closet side.

 Another project was organizing the myriad of wires in the basement.  When we had the gigantic entertainment center, this was not an issue as it could all just be stuffed in the back and nothing was seen.  Now we have a smaller TV stand and I used plastic conduit to organize the chords.  I may end up painting it to match the walls.  You can still see it but it is not as annoying as having a sea of worms along the walls and floor.

 The only thing missing is the couch.  We ordered a sectional from Macy's and are waiting until November for its delivery.  You would think they could build us a whole new house by then.  We'd also like to find a way to put some photos up.  Perhaps a picture shelf or some similar device.

This is not a project we chose to take on but we are pretty happy with the results.  We have a little organizing to do in the office area and there is some re-finishing I'd like to do at the soffit at the stairs but otherwise, I consider this project complete.