This is a comedic manifesto written from the first person perspective of my flooring alter ego, mr plus

Dear blogging familia. This project. Oh man. This project was really something. It was going to be my two weeks of heaven. I’d finally get to sleep in, because this place was in the Chicago suburbs conveniently nestled right behind my neighborhood in Highland Park, IL.

An absolute peach of a job, location wise. I got to snooze the alarm multiple times, this one was going to be a dream come true in the wild stardom of my flooring career. I was feeling like a bad boy that week too, so I said fuck it and bought a pack of cigarettes that I was going to secretly smoke throughout the week without telling anyone. To my girlfriend Terrah, babe if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. It was just all gas that week, I was feeling cool and there was no shot of slowing down when I was rocking the Sprinter van with Ferrari shades on.

7am - first day of the Project

Voila! We were off. Sprinter van chugging that beautiful diesel gold that it does, humming along beautifully. Rap beats blasting on my radio while I drove to work practicing my freestyle raps. Did Kanye truly live the life of Jesus? Could he have? When I was the one that was woodworking for the first 30 years of my life? Just the typical thoughts that ran through my head that day. What could possibly ruin this? There was absolutely nothing that was bringing down this energy baby, we were soaring through the sky.

Oh, except the screw we ended up hitting in the driveway later that day, which resulted in the flat tire that we then later got. But hey, that’s business baby. Now show me that wood.

Pulled up to the job

Sprinter brakes squeaking so badly my ear drums popped. Honestly, I have no clue if the brakes are even still good. Haven’t checked them in months. They still stop the car, so today could already be going a lot worse but it’s not. We’re keeping our head up.

I look over, my flooring ninjas are already there. These are the coolest, coldest, hardest working flooring cowboys from the south of the border that you’ve ever fuckin’ seen, pal.

There’s Mariano, a true G and one of my longest working/most loyal daily grinding pals. We’re homies for life.

Walking up with him is Jesus. Yes, you read that right. No further explanations needed. He’s short, yet they’d still need a cross twice the size they used on the original one.

And last but not least, the undisputed flooring heavyweight champion of the world, Mr. Julio. He’s young, like me, and he’s hungry which I respect greatly. He’s a true woodworking artist down to his blood with the machines and brushes. I could feel it since day one, he’s got that Flooring God particle in his DNA. The type of guy you know is running his own operation one day.

We bust open the door

Fuck! Guys, there is borders to replace and an entire room to install. We’ve gatta replace all of the red Brazilian Cherry borders with normal looking Oak. I’ll go get the red bulls, y’all start firing up the saws, this place is about to turn into a battlefield.

Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus playing on my way back to the same gas station I had already been at. Covered completely in dust for this second visit, the clerk was about to find out who I really was that morning. “Oh, haha, why am I dusty? I happen to be Mr Plus, baby.” I kiss my cross necklace right in front of them, and I walk out.

I make it back to the house. Wouldn’t you know it, things look worse then they did before. But some progress was good progress, so we were getting through.

By these next photos, it’s been days.

We’re still working on just getting through the very first installation portion of the job, and I was already contemplating a second pack of cigarettes.

Oh did I tell you, we were doing this entire staircase too, lol. But as you can see, the new railings are already finished and installed. I was too amped from a mixture of red bull & cigarettes that entire first week so I forgot to take a picture of the previous old stuff. Here’s the new stuff already installed.

Shit, did I also forget to mention there was an entire back staircase with a new railing system to be installed too? nervous laughing

But hey. The messy shit was finally over. The installs were done. It was time to start ripping the runner off of those steps and rubbing sharp rocks against wood. The start of the fun stuff. Cruising that beautiful 30 year old belt sander over some not-super-terribly-old oak. The dust boogers from this one would be something of a marvelous feat. Dust boogers were medals, all well earned in this battlefield of wood floor sanding.

It Was Time To Choose A Color

This was it. This was the day. I have to meet them, the homeowners. Until this point the last time I had seen them was 4 months ago during the initial estimate. They had just closed on the place 3 days before we started, so we let ourselves in through a lockbox when the project began. I haven’t seen them in ages. Should I shave? Should I get a haircut? The flooring celebrity they had hired off of a 7 year old magazine cover was about to show them four colors of oil splotched onto some wood. It was my time to shine.

Walk in, big shot macho man energy, as I always do. Box of half opened and premixed stains in my hands, I’m ready to go.

As I’m walking up, the can in my left hand slips out and falls on my foot, then splashes onto the floor. First color sample done. Three more to go.

I begin tirelessly wiping these damn colors into the wood. As I do so, I think about all of the life choices I’ve made that led me to this point. By now, the fumes from the stain sample I’m making are hitting my head, hard. That beloved Bona brand is about to carry me back up into the sedated heavens with my nose.

As I finally start to come down from the quick high of stain fumes mixed with the constant wood dust floating through the air, I realize I’m done with the flooring samples. Beautiful. I shut my video camera off and wait for the homeowners.

the homeowners walk in

They’re nice. As I remember them. Very friendly. Followers off of my social media page, and younger folks too. About my age. The sample session flies by. She falls in love with the graphite color, no matter how hard I try to swap her towards the easier option of not doing any stain. Blast, you win this time Mrs. Homeowner.

They walk over to the living room, where I’ve already sanded the floors with the belt sander. Turning around, they also check out the fire place. It was being redone too.

Crazy story? Fireplace guy & I used to street race our cars together when we were teenagers. Yea, the Fast And Furious movies bit me HARD when I was a kid. And here we were years later, remodeling some of the same houses on the streets we used to race through. A bond that can’t be replicated. And a story that can’t be mimicked by ChatGPT.

Anyways, the wife steps to the side and she opens the sliding door to check out the yard. My eyes immediately widen and I begin to panic. This was during the great Chicago Cicada Infestation of 2024. There were so many, that they had been passively falling down through their old fireplace the prior first week while we had been working.

She opens the sliding door. Everything is fine. Quick peak outside with her head, all good. She doesn’t dare take any actual steps outside as the cicadas are buzzing all around. She closes the door back up. They didn’t get her. Thank God.

Relieved, I walk up and show them the back railings. Freshly installed, they look incredible. I start telling them how we’re going to be ready to stain the place in the next couple of days and then I hear it!

The loudest cicada scream you could have ever imagined. Coming directly from her hair.

She starts screaming too. Louder then the cicada. Full pitch. Her husband freaks out and starts grabbing at her hair. Meanwhile, I was standing right in front of her during the scream. I fell over, startled, caught myself on the railing, and nearly broke the new wooden post we had just put in.

He gets it. Grabs it with his full hand, cups it, and like a champion he fucking WWE wrestling slam-throws it down onto the freshly sanded floor.

I take the time to ask him if he wants me to leave the mark from the cicada in the wooden floor, as a sort of trophy. He pleasantly declines and they disappear back into the vast unknown. I wouldn’t see them again until the end of the project. The best type of customers.

After they leave, I promptly begin to continue sanding, and sand off the samples I applied to the floors.

Hardwood Flooring & Staircase Staining Day

It was finally here. The day I dread. The day where I have to get highest out of the entire process of the job. But even the toughest of stains & the largest of square footage projects could never take down Mr. Plus.

The team and I put our disposable gorilla gloves on.

We had our shitty .99 cent chip brushes from Home Depot.

We were ready to turn up the Spanish music and have ourselves a stain infused fiesta.

Let’s get messy boys.

floor finishing day

We made it. Friday, of the following week. Exactly the same day I promised them the project would be finished. Total luck shot on timing? That stays between Mr. Plus and myself.

The staining we had completed the day before turned out incredible. I mean truly, a masterpiece. It’s always good when you don’t have a single spot on the floor to touch up. Unfortunately, on this one, we had about 20. After touch ups were done, we could start vacuuming and applying coats of finish.

We had our tools, we were ready, yet again. Difficulty wise, today was no different than the staining day yesterday. We just had different roles today.

Flooring roller duty seniority is totally a thing in our world of small floor sanding businesses. You can ask any floor sanding companies HR department, it truly is real. Needless to say, I’m the boss man, so I get to cut the line in front of the older guys, obviously.

The feeling of a brand new generic brand paint roller cover while rolling finish. My god, it’s truly indescribable. They just don’t make them like these generic Amazon 6 packs anymore. Covered over a freshly bought Lowe’s Purdy Roller sleeve. If heaven was a paint roller it would be this one. I know these things are plastic, but I tell ya what, they’re putting the same AI technologies into these things that they are into the new golf clubs they make these days. This thing rolls and swings at such a perfectly balanced weight ratio. Most days I feel like I could hit a golf ball better with my paint roller rather than my actual golf clubs.

Finish was pouring on the floor, paint brushes and finish rollers were making their beautiful harmonic symphonies. Things were being finished up. Everything went without a single problem. I’m serious this time too! Pure beauty, pure perfection, and the pure smell of chemicals, all bottled extravagantly into a decently sized suburban home. A lovely scent mix that would ensure the woodworking in this home was renovated properly. One might say this scent is similar to the type of romance you feel with your nose when entering the lumber section of a Home Depot. The same type of aura for sure.

Another battle was conquered, another flooring war has been won. Mr. Plus was able to spend the next 3 days resting easy, while playing video games with his delicate artistic flooring hands resting at the computer. He would sit back, awaiting what future flooring endeavors hit his email inbox next. As soon as they call upon him, he serves.

Finito

Final Project Results Below

Hey, before you go, want to see something super cool? Check this out.

Lol jk. The Amazon affiliate link helps me pay for the massive amount of time it takes to write these stories out and upload so many photos, especially as a full time small business owner. So if you just pressed the link & hit me with some commisshhh, I appreciate it. Also, thank you, Mr Jeff Bezos, please don’t kill me.