Inner Rambo

After installing hardwood floors, I've spent a few hours each weekend since putting in the 1/4 round molding. This covers the gap between the newly-installed floors and the walls. You have to leave this gap so that the wood has room to expand a little.

Since I suck at math (because math is for nerds), the precision measuring and cutting needed to get the molding to fit together nicely at corners, etc., really blows. However, I'm sticking to it and slowly getting through the bedroom and hallway.

Yesterday I spent about 2 hours figuring out how to get a crazy little 2-inch piece of molding into place. It was set at a slight angle (about 8 degrees) to the pieces on either side of it b/c of an angled door frame. On top of the squirrelly angle, i had to figure out how to carve a little gap on the back side of the piece so that i could squeeze the cable/internet wire behind it. This wire then runs in the gap all the way around the apartment so that it'll be covered by the molding.

It took me a full day to get the cable wire situation figured out, so I didn't want it to look all crappy right at the start. I ended up whittling a little gap in the two-inch piece of molding and then sawing it out with the tooth edge on my Rambo-style survival knife. I got that knife when I was 10 or something, and have never used it for a dang thing. For some reason, I've kept it for 20+ years and through 7 moves to 4 different cities. I feel vindicated now.

I was so proud of myself I had to tell the 3 people who read this blog. Now you can all revel in my mad carpentry and rambo skills.


(For the record, the molding in the picture isn't nailed or glued into place yet. That's why it looks all janky.)