Alright folks, today I wanna talk about putting together that basketball floor for my little home setup. Got this wooden parquet kit delivered last week, all excited to make a mini court in my garage.

The Unboxing Chaos

First thing – opened the boxes and dang, so many pieces! Like hundreds of little wood planks tumbling out everywhere. Started sorting them by size on the garage floor, took me a good hour just to stop tripping over them. Label said “easy assembly” but I knew better already.

The Dry Run Disaster

Tried laying out the first section without glue just to see. Looked simple enough on YouTube videos but mine? Ha! Ended up with gaps big enough to lose my phone in between planks. Had to start over like three times, crawling around trying to match the tongue-and-groove thingies.

Big mistakes I made at first:

• Didn’t check each board for warping
• Assumed all pieces were exactly same size (nope!)
• Started near the wall when should’ve done center first

Gluing Nightmares

Broke out the wood adhesive – sticky mess everywhere! Wore gloves but still got glue all over my favorite t-shirt. Clamped sections together with these cheap clamps from the hardware store. Woke up next morning to find entire center section popped up like a damn speed bump! Guess I didn’t use enough weights.

Final Stretch

Took all weekend but finally got it down tight. Sweating buckets dragging that roller across every inch to flatten it. Added the finish coating yesterday – smells like a damn chemical factory but it’s drying nice. Still got some visible seams that bug me, but hey, ball bounces true!

Would I do it again? Hell no, but my kid loves it so guess it’s worth it. Just don’t believe the “easy DIY” packaging lies, ya hear?