Hello Again,
 
Nancy Stephens sent me a copy of her post.  Nancy, extremely well said.  My
own personal, biggest problem with chemicals is my own sensitivity to them,
even smelling them in the stores can give me a reaction.
 
Wanted to give some insight on the flooring business.  I finally finished
putting the vinyl tiles in the ferret room, and if I do say so myself, I
done did good.
 
The hardest part for me was pulling the carpet out and the tack strips.  I
did this all by myself, and it is was plain tough.  Not enough strength.
Dragging the carpet out was the worst part (carpet is heavy, so if women
types do this, get a man to haul it out for you).
 
I did find some wonderful, cheap tools to help with the tack strip.  I got
myself a rubber mallet and a very short pry bar, with the head right angles
to the stem.  Made the tack strip come up like a dream, much easier and
faster than using a hammer and screwdriver.
 
Also, some may wonder about using vinyl tiles instead of sheet flooring.
Yes, I think sheet flooring is much better.  But the tiles are much less
expensive and much easier to install yourself.  Plus, I am not planning on
staying here very long at all, and I realize that I will be covering the
floor with carpet to sell the house.
 
To make the tiles better, I bought something called seam sealer, It is an
epoxy compound used to seal the seams between pieces of sheet vinyl.  I
applied it in the corners around where the litter boxes sit.  That way
nothing will seep down to the concrete sub floor.
 
I also prepped the sub floor with a latex primer, made to go under the tile.
It helps to seal it, and helps the tile to adhere better.
 
The floor itself went fast.  At home depot they have large instruction
sheets showing how to chaulk line the floor and start the tiles, to make it
pretty.  One word of caution, something I learned building decks.  Measure
and mark your chaulk line carefully, and be accurate with your very first
tiles.  Even the slightest bit off will multiply as you get further into the
job.  What starts out as a small off center, becomes a major problem.
 
I keep a barrier of masonite in the door jamb.  I am going to replace it
with plexiglass soon.  But to finish off the floor, while keeping any carpet
butting up to the flooring safe, I applied a wooden threshold.  It is appx.
3 inches wide, and I have painted it to match the door jamb.  It went in
with 3 screws.  In concrete, you must drill holes, plug them with wood and
then attached the threshold to these.  But even with my moderate battery
powered drill, this was not a problem.
 
This wooden threshold is what the ferrets on the OUTSIDE of the room scratch
on.  I plan on laying down the same thing around my closet doors, where they
have already tunneled through the carpet.  It looks great, and doesn't look
like an after thought.
 
I figured out something that helps, most carpet and flooring are seamed in
the exact middle of the threshold.  If you move it towards the hall side of
the door, you can put a barrier in that keeps the inside of the room totally
away from the carpet.  And this placement also allows the woodend threshold
to be totally outside of the barrier, giving more "safe" scratching room for
the carpet diggers in the bunch.  And no, it really isn't noticable.
 
The ferrets seem to enjoy the new floor.  I know I do.  I have a mess of
boys who won't use the boxes all the time.  Now, I go in with my shop vac,
suck up all the mess in and out of the litter boxes, and wipe down around
the boxes.  I have cut my clean up time by over half with the vinyl.
 
The whole project cost me around $250, tools and all.  I did not buy the
cheapest vinyl tile out there, not by a long shot.  And the room is fairly
good sized, will hold a king size bed and several other small pieces of
furniture.  All I can say is, do it!!  And yes, I did it ALL by myself, just
took me a whole lot longer than most folks.  hehe.
 
Margaret
"I feel liked I am parked diagonally in a parrellal universe"
[Posted in FML issue 2306]