New floors

My week is all messed up. Thanks to the holiday on Monday, I keep thinking that it is one day earlier than it really is… anyone else having that problem this week? Maybe it’s just me…

So Saturday and Sunday were pretty rainy here in the Midwest. We didn’t let that get us down though and still had fun… well, we had fun on Saturday and then we went shopping on Sunday =)

For years, Ray and I have been considering changing the flooring on our first floor but were unsure of what we wanted, carpet and tile, all hardwood, hardwood and tile, laminate, etc etc… Imagine my surprise then on Sunday, when we actually purchased and brought home boxes upon boxes of engineered hardwood floors!!! All I can say is thank goodness we bought the van last September!!

Monday was spent tearing out the old carpet in the family room and then the vinyl laminate floor and the 1/4″ plywood beneath it in the dining room. Ray did most of the work and I helped where I could (mainly cleaning, moving things and keeping the kids occupied)… At one point it looked like he was done physically… it was hot and we had been working for hours (though we did take a nice break to have a “picnic” lunch with the kids in the playroom). We still had about a 1/4 of the dining room floor left to rip out and then lots and lots and lots of staples to hammer down, so I took over. I have to say that there is something very rewarding about demo day!! I got a little rush every time I pulled another board up and I had a blast hammering down those staples. =)

(I can’t wait to paint the walls now and can I just say that it is really disgusting seeing just how much dust and dirt is under the carpet and padding… ewwwww!)

The kids wanted to help, but we talked them into thinking that it would be more fun for them to play up in the loft/playroom… they kept checking on us though (and we were checking on them every 2 minutes as well…)

Fast forward to today. Today was the day that we could start laying the new floors if we wanted to, and well….. we wanted to!!! I made sure that everything that could be moved by me alone was moved out of the way before Ray came home, because Ray started working on laying down the new floors as soon as he came home. We have about 4 or 5 rows down and I love it already!

I can already tell that our home is going to look so different once the floors are done and the walls are painted. I took a few more “in progress” pictures tonight, but am too tired to process them, so I’ll post those in another post.