We were also in construction and have installed many floors of hardwood & ceramic tile. Our finished floors will go down as one of the last things. Our floor will be insulated under the bus. We will be using
12x12 Commercial Vinyl Tile (in stock at the store I work at) glued down to the original incredibly well stuck rubber bus floor covering. I will use inexpensive "throw" rugs on the floor (the kind you "throw away" when they get too dirty & stained). Our walls are secured to the floor ("L" brackets) and the original walls (board screwed to wall then the wall panel is screwed to the board). Our wall panels are
flush doors. We can't build a real finished 2 sided wall for $1/inch. One of the doors we bought was a damaged prehung/prebored 36" door. I got it marked down to $10. We only needed about 15" so we trimmed off the "hole" for the door knob (cut off the damage at the same time), trimmed the height and put it in place. The frame that came with the set up was turned into a face frame only vanity. And I still have the door stop molding that will be used to trim my flat panel plywood vanity cabinet doors (to make them look like a "normal" flat panel door with the raised edges). I want all my cabinet doors to be on the thick side so that I can screw hooks and eyes (to hold things) any place I want on the backside of the cabinet door. So we are using thicker plywood and applying screen molding to the face.
We are also using a
cheaper plywood ($20 per sheet) and skimming
Rock Hard Putty to cover the imperfections in the wood. Since we are painting the cabinets inside & out, we can get away with this and I wanted a really hard filler for all the filled spots. I am not happy with most of the lumber. Quality has gone way down and prices have gone up. To get a decent sheet of plywood would cost us over $30. David had bought that huge can of putty back during the summer to make a repair on the roof of the food cart (rotted spot on roof). I figured we might as well use it. I mixed it up (add water to the dry powder) a little thin and spread a really thin coat on, scraping the excess off, just to fill the depressions and knots. David says this stuff dries harder than the wood it fills. Said to keep it as thin as possible otherwise I would spend far too much time sanding. So I skim coated the floor panel of one cabinet - interior, exterior (won't be seen since it's the bottom but it will get painted), as well as the front edge so I won't have to buy edge banding tape (which may or may not peel off later). I have tomorrow off so I will finish filling/sanding the sink side of the galley then. Next week I will have a working kitchen sink... no more washing dishes in the food cart or bathroom sink! Today while I am at work, David will put together the plumbing supply/drain lines and connect it to the appropriate inlet/outlets. Next paycheck will mean the
shower walls and maybe a
water heater. No more freezing cold bathhouse (they claim the heat is on but it's not)! With all the extra hours I've been getting, we are trying to get as much done as possible. Once all the must haves are done (by Christmas???), I can start buying the "I wanna's"... like a used washer & LP dryer. I really don't want to schlep our laundry back & forth to the laundry room in the wintertime.
For our Black Friday sales, Home Depot had Allure flooring for under $1/sq ft "while supplies lasted". By end of Saturday it was all gone and we had a lot of it. Maybe they will run another sale on it for Christmas.
