Okay, so yesterday, I decided to tackle that pile of wooden flooring I had sitting in the garage. The project? My home office. The goal? No more cold, ugly concrete.

Getting Started

First, I cleared the entire room. Everything out. Then, I gave the concrete floor a good sweep and vacuumed it twice, because you know, dust bunnies are the enemy of a smooth floor.

The Fun (and Not-So-Fun) Part

I unboxed the flooring and let it sit in the room for a couple of hours. Apparently, wood needs to “acclimatize” like some fancy wine.

Then came the layout. I started in one corner, clicked the first few planks together pretty easily. It felt like giant, satisfying LEGOs. But then… the wall. It wasn’t perfectly straight. My first lesson: walls lie.

So, I grabbed my jigsaw – after watching a quick “how-to” video, of course – and trimmed the edge of the plank. Not my finest work, but it fit. Kind of.

Rubber Dancing

Here’s where the “rubber dancing” comes in. Some of these planks were stubborn. Like, really stubborn. They just didn’t want to click together. I tried tapping them gently with a rubber mallet. No luck.

Then, I remembered seeing a pro use a tapping block and a pull bar. I didn’t have those fancy tools, so I improvised. I found a scrap piece of wood and used it to distribute the force of the mallet. And for the edges, I used the mallet and my body weight to kind of “persuade” the planks into place. It looked a little like a weird, frustrated dance, hence “rubber dancing.”

The Pain and The Progress

• My knees started to ache.
• My back joined the complaint choir.
• I may have invented a few new curse words.

But slowly, plank by plank, row by row, the floor started to take shape. I took breaks, stretched, and kept going. The “click” of each plank locking into place was like a tiny victory cheer.

The End (Almost)

Finally, I reached the last row. More trimming, more “dancing,” and then… it was done. The floor was in. It wasn’t perfect. There were a few gaps I wasn’t thrilled with, but overall, it looked a million times better than the bare concrete.

I stood back, admired my handiwork, and collapsed on the new floor. It was surprisingly comfortable, even with the slight imperfections. And most importantly, it was no longer cold and ugly.

Next step: baseboards. But that’s a story for another day.