{Floor}ed

As I left off in the "our new labor of love" post, we had purchased our house and I glazed over all of the stuff from then, until now.

The first night we owned our house, we ripped out the disgusting 70s orange carpet that was in the living room and dining room. Unfortunately, this color just didn't go with much that we had, so it had to come out! Nick came home from work that night, and picked up the utility knife, and started removing it, piece by piece. We have ripped out carpet before, in our condo, twice, so this was nothing new for us. We just had to make sure we followed the guidelines so that our new best friend, the garbage man, would take it away for us. Later that weekend, as we started taking the pieces to the curb, our neighbors said a "thank god" when they saw the orange was coming out.

We had a tight schedule to get everything done. We were having the counters being measured on the following Monday, and the new bamboo floors were going to be installed the following weekend. We had to make sure we had everything done and prepped for the work that was going to take place. That meant ripping out all of the flooring and getting the wallpaper down. Sounds easy enough...our Friends at Build Direct unloaded a pallet of bamboo for us, and that was just waiting to be installed. If you are installing floors, or having it done, it's recommended to move the wood into the area it is to be installed a couple of days prior to install so that the wood can acclimate to it's new environment.

Since we were using bamboo, on a cement slab, we had a few things we had to do differently, which added more time to the project. We had to use glue to adhere the planks to the slab. Typically some sort of underlayment is put down, but that can't be done with concrete. We also had to get a glue that had a moisture barrier to make sure the bamboo was safe from absorbing any moisture. This glue is quite thick and can be even more difficult to work with. Our guy was less than thrilled with one of the brands we bought because it was so thick it was like moving taffy.

After day one, the floors were starting to come along, the dining room was finished and we were moving into the the other half of the living room. The other major project was that the granite was installed that weekend too! We now had new counters to go with our new floors:





It took 4 days to complete the entire project. We had the floors put in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and foyer. When it was finished, it looks beautiful and such an improvement to the ugly carpet and Pergo that was there before. We now had shiny new floors to transform our main floor into a beautiful place to live.

from the front entry into the living room

Dining room looking into living room



Our kitchen {almost} finished product!

BONUS:

We had gross, white carpet in our master bedroom. The rest of the floor had the original hardwood floors, which we absoulutely adore! We were hoping that when we ripped up the carpet, we would find a treasure, but we couldn't get out hopes up.

This house is Jefferson's so he likes to get in a pic whenever he can!

One night we decided to risk it, and start tearing out the carpet (we seem to really like this task). Underneath, to our delight, was the same beautiful, thin, planks that were on the rest of the floor. Because they had carpet down, there were some imperfections due to nails, staples, and glue. Some people might be sad by the imperfections, but I actually love them. I think it give the flooring so much more character and gives it a more rustic feel. We will evetually have them refinished to make sure that they are treated properly and keep their beauty. For now, we are enjoying them, just the way they are!