The Birth of New Floors!

After tearing up our old floors we began laying down the new laminate wood flooring.

The first two rows are a tad tricky. 

It isn't until the 3rd and 4th rows do the pieces really begin to feel locked into place and stop moving around.

With just a few rows in place, my excitement was a little, um, over-the-top. 
I'm lucky my family loves me.

Keeping the sub floor free of debris is important and every few rows, I'd fire up the shop vac and suck up anything I could find. 

There may have been a few Nerf bullets inadvertently sucked up.

After starting in the family room, we worked our way into the front entry hall and the coat closet.

The process continues from the front entry hall into the living and dining rooms.

Snap, lock, up, cut, down, snap, lock, up, cut, down.  Repeat 7 million times.

Workin' it from the family room into the kitchen.
All those corners and cabinetry made it, shall we say, interesting.

Moment of honesty :  It is 11:45 pm on News Year's Eve when my husband took this picture.  There is no humanly way possible I could have gotten up the next morning knowing that a tiny section of the house was still left to finish.   I was slightly tired and sore from doing the up-down-cut-snap-lock dance moves and my muscles were a tad unhappy with me.  (Crossfit ain't got nothin' on me!) 
So on News Year's Eve, my family and I are cutting, snapping and locking the final pieces into place.

Hey, I know how to party.

A future project will be painting those oak cabinets white as well as a fun idea I have of bringing a barn look to a very contemporary home. 

Stay tuned!

Up & Out with the Old

The demolition process begins!

During the holiday season, my husband took some time off of work to spend it with our boys.  As any good parent would do, we decided the perfect way to celebrate working so hard during the school year was to have the kids tear up the flooring in our home.

They were so excited.

First we had to remove all the trim around the floors and doorways.  You can see the standard-1990s-builder-oak-trim in some of the pictures below.  Ick.


What appears to be white moulding is really the sheet rock behind the removed trim.  For 12 years I longed for the big thick white moulding to frame my floors and doors.  Finally, I was seeing this become a reality.

This is the carpet coming up in the living and dining rooms. 

To the right is our front entry hall.  More oak. 

Lucky us.

When our home was built in 1999 the really cool snap & lock floating floors weren't designed yet.  These laminate wood planks were stapled into place with the biggest staples ever.  Each staple was then stapled along the edge of each plank about an 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart. 

My oldest boy thought tearing out those staples was just awesome.
(Insert sarcasm font).

The only way to get each of those ginormous staples out of the sub flooring was to wedge a screwdriver underneath the top of the staple and then whack it with a hammer. 

The first 276 times were fun, then...not so much.

With the carpet removed from the family room, the boys still had the bedroom hallway carpet to pull up.

Look at all that oak.  OOOO baby.

As soon as I got off of work, I would put on the work clothes and help my Master Demolition Dudes pull up all the carpet staples. 
So.  Many.  Staples. 
A long and tedious project, but extremely important to get them out before laying the new floors.

 

One of our very first home updates came when we covered up the builder basic (read : cheap) linoleum in the kitchen.  These were commercial grade laminate tile designed to last 20 years.  Or 5, if you have boys. 
This was quite the chore as we had to pull up the tile, linoleum and the linoleum sub flooring. 

The pain of difficulty was eased when we had to purchase a new power tool.

I love a good do-it-yourself project and very rarely become upset during the in between stages.  Before starting any project I can clearly see the end result and it always helps keep me calm during the mayhem.  With all that being said, when all the floors were pulled up and our boys were walking around in pajamas with their shoes on because it was unsafe to be barefoot, I felt like the worst mother in the world.  I had removed the safe environment from my children.

As the new floors went down, their beauty erased those bad parenting feelings. Whew. 

Next time, I will show you our laying down of the new floors dreams coming true.

Element of WOW!

You know when you find the PERFECT piece of furniture and you just HAVE TO HAVE it?  That happened to me when I was pouring over websites looking for the perfect chandelier.

With such straight lines and modern elements we introduced to our home, I tried to convince my husband we could go with a crystal hanging chandelier for our family room, the main room in our home.  A perfect touch of feminine, I thought.

That didn't go over so well.

Then I found THE one.  I found the perfect light until I saw the not so perfect price tag.  $900.  Really?  For a chandelier?

Determined to find another retailer, I kept looking.  Diligence paid off and I found it for less than half the price including delivery!  Before I could triple guess myself (which I often do and then regret my indecision later), I bought it.  1 week later it was hanging in my family room.  We have nick-named it "The Exploding Light Bulb". 

Friends, I give you my Element of Wow, my Pièce de Résistance - my new chandelier.

My biggest, boldest design move I've ever done for myself!