

You will have to send us some pictures of what you do with your new FLOR!!
Congrats again and thanks to all who commented!
--Coastin anon
Here you can see that the back of each tile has a sticker on it with the name of the tile and the color as well as some arrows to indicate the pile of the rug. This way, if you are putting the same tiles all next to each other, you can make sure the pieces all flow the same direction:
Here are some of the velvet twist FLOR tiles as they arrived out of the box:
Also in the box was a handy metal ruler. I hadn't purchased the ruler the last time I got the FLOR tiles and I should have. Since it is a metal ruler, you don't have to worry about the carpet knife getting caught on it when you are scoring your tiles:
Also, the back of the ruler has these convenient markings for 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2 tiles...thereby eliminating any math you might have to do to split the tiles...which are 19 inches and change (rather than a nice, easily calculable 20" even):
The Short Shag tiles came out of the box a bit squished:
You can see the pile a bit better once I ran my hand through it:
So now it was time to get down to the business of cutting these things...I was a bit nervous because last time it was a disaster and I didn't have any extra tiles this time to work with. I placed the ruler on the back of the tile and marked the half length:
Then I took my trusty carpet knife:
And promptly cut the square inaccurately. You can see here that my knife skipped a bit so I had to go back and fix the cut. This worked out ok in the end because I was abutting the cut edge to a short shag rug with a taller pile that could hide my mistake...but if I were lining up the shorter piles squares next to each other, I would really have to make sure my cuts were exactly perfect:
I, thankfully, got the hang of cutting the tiles and was able to move on to separating the cuts. Once you score the cut a few times, you fold over the tile and separate the carpet...it's as easy as that:
The entire process of cutting the 6 tiles I needed for the border of my rug took about 20 minutes...then I was ready to lay them out on the floor and get ready to put the rug together:
I was working by myself so I don't have a picture of me attaching the FLOR dots to the tiles, but it is super easy. Since I had a custom design, I did need a few extra dots, but I had them from my last project so I was all set. One of the great things about the FLOR tiles is that they attach to themselves, not to the floor, so you don't mar your floor and you can easily move the area rug around once you have put it together:
One quick go over with the vacuum cleaner and you could barely tell where the seams were!
In all, from the moment I opened the box until I had vacuumed the rug and taken this picture, the process took me less than an hour...and that includes a 10 minute phone call from my sister-in-law who was coming to visit that day. I should also say, this project was completed in the time Little G took his morning nap!
I think it looks great and I am really pleased with the quality of the rug and how once I knew what I was doing, the ease of customizing it to my needs. So guess it is safe to say that THIS time, I really AM floored! (sorry, I couldn't resist).
You went to your first baseball game last weekend, August 30. It was the Brockton Rocks against the Worcester Tornadoes. Dad carried you in the Moby wrap and you spit up on us so much we went through the bib AND the back-up bib so we had to buy a souvenir bib! You also screamed through the National Anthem...voicing what must have been everyone else's opinion since the lady singing wasn't very good.
We started out sponge bathing you when you first came home, but your umbilical cord came off when you were only 8 days old, so we started bathing you in your 'bucket'. You loved that but now we have even more fun bathing you in the shower with us.
You have made lots of friends at our new mommy groups and you have finally stopped crying when around other crying babies. Aunt Kathryn says you were just feeling their pain. We have learned lots of songs and games and sometimes you even like them.
You grew out of your small diapers and are now on the mediums which means you crossed the threshold to 14 pounds. And you have finally found your thumb on a consistent enough basis that we can totally count it as a skill.
Perhaps the most amazing thing that has happened is that you sleep through the night on most occasions. We have a bedtime routine that we start at 8:00 where we change your diaper and put your PJ's on. Either daddy or I feed you a bottle in the rocking chair in your nursery while the other one of us reads a book to you. When you are done, daddy swaddles you really, really tight and we lay you down in your crib (which you have been sleeping in at night since you were one month old - prior to that you were in a bassinet in our room). Sometimes you get up as early as 4:30 in the morning and want to be changed and fed, but recently you have slept as late as 5, 5:30, 6 or even 7:00!! What a wonderful blessing it has been for us to be able to sleep through the night too!
All of these accomplishments have been made before your second month birthday.
Garrison, your daddy and I love you more than we can possibly express. You are light - you are joy - you are love.
Happy birthday, son.
--Mom