Hardwood Floors - Day 2

Yesterday, we finally started installing the floor.  Still going slow, but just from the small amount we finished, I can already tell it's going to look amazing!

Drumroll, please!  Here's the very first board!

While the boys were busy installing the planks, I was out in the garage painting all these quarter round toe kicks.  I cranked up some Eminem to help me through it, but after painting 5 12ft strips, not even Eminem could keep me warm in that freezing weather.  And it seems like it's going to be even colder today!

A lot of loud sawing was heard throughout the house too.  We have to trim all the door jambs to fit the flooring...

And of course, Miss Lillerskatez (aka "Lily") wasn't too pleased with all the noise:

Here's the work in progress.  Note the skillful use of a jigsaw to fit the planks in the closet :)

By the end of the day, the closet was finished and a couple more rows were added on before we all crashed on the couch eating homemade pizza and watching "My Name is Earl".

Hardwood Floors - Day 1

It's so exciting to finally see some progress in the hardwood floor project.  Granted, no actually flooring has been installed yet, but here are the adventures in measuring and learning from Day 1.

First, we measured everything about eleventy billion times trying to find the center of the room.  Laser tools are fun, mmmkay!

Then we installed the underlay.  Looks like a golf course, huh?  That stuff is pretty fun to lay down because it has peel and stick tape! :D  That's the first box of Bamboo we opened!

The last thing we did was to lay down a row of planks to see how many we needed and how much trimming we're going to need to do to fit everything in the room.   Not sure if you can tell, but the first 1/3 of boards are lighter than the last 2/3.  Apparently, we were given 5 boxes of light-colored floor and 30 boxes of medium color.  It's gonna looks so cool all mixed together!

Up close, you can see how much character bamboo flooring has.  My floors are going to have personality!

Doesn't seem like we got much done, but the first day is a learning curve.  The rest should go a lot quicker.... knock on wood...

Adventures in Preparation

As a lot of you already know, we're installing hardwood floors over the next 2 weeks.  In the past couple weeks, I've been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing.  Here's some of the fun I've had...

First, we had to clear out the dining room so we could bring all the boxes of bamboo flooring.   Why bamboo?  It's a green material since it renews about every 4 years and it's got a lot of character because of bamboo's unique rings.  That's a lot of boxes!  1000 square feet of flooring, to be exact.

Then I discovered that I could probably make an entire army of dust elephants with the amount of dust there was in places I forgot to clean.... ever.... Hey, don't judge me!

I also discovered we had more wires (or "waiiiiiires" as Lester in "Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders" says) than a radio shack, but I found a nifty way of organizing them! :)

While I was searching for other ways to organize things, I came across this awesome Instructable on how to create your very own Hungarian Style Shelves .  I am definitely going to be doing this once the floor project is finished! (Picture below is from the Instructable)

After I finally got the office all cleaned out, I started on my bedroom.  I got rid of so many clothes.  This closet used to be full of shoes and clothes and all those hangers were recently separated from their beloved shirts.

Next, I'll be going to Goodwill to get rid of all those clothes.  I've already sold several things on Craigslist, such as a Lay-Z-Boy, some fish tanks, headboard & footboard, and a cat gate that does not work with my cats. 

And here we are... The first strip of carpeting removed!  I can't wait to see how the new floors are going to look!  Stay tuned....