New Floors!

It all began looking like this:

Notice the lack of flooring, and if you look closely, you can see an area in the hall that had been patched.

Does anyone remember those old floor registers?  The big square ones that came straight up from the furnace in the basement?

The hallway patch is where one of those were.

In these 1950's homes, this patch job is quite common.  So common in fact that several of our friends in the area have this same patch in their homes - covered by a rug.

Although we did receive the rug suggestion, our thoughts were to finish it as if it were never there to begin with.

So up came the patch, down went the subfloor, and out came the saw.

Meticulously, carefully, and very very strategically, the old boards were cut and pulled up.

Now add a little bit of these beauties.

And this is what you get. 

And if you have awesome, spectacular friends, you get this.


Big Blue is the floor nailer Melanie's holding.  He's loud. 


But Melanie is tough. 











I love Melanie's wonderful flooring skills.  She is a beast when it comes to floors.  Don't let that sweet voice fool you.

She kicks serious flooring butt.

Just sayin'.  I told ya so.


Paul's great too - just in case you thought I was leaving him out.  He'll take your ideas and claim them as his own, but he works hard. ..... just kiddin Paul. 

but seriously this man has been John's right hand man on this house.

He's out helping John right now with the deck as we speak.  And even brought John lunch.

That's brotherly love there.  Food.

After all that, this is the beautiful Kitchen floor you get.  It's not stained yet which is even more amazing.

Although the lighting is poor (working at night will do that, especially if you have no flash on your camera phone), you can see the phenomenal job Paul and Melanie did on placing the floors. 

The coloring is perfect to blend into the existing hardwoods, which has all to do with the pieces you choose.

 
These are the existing floorboards here.  Between these two pictures you can see how the previous floors have the different grains mixed in occasionally.

This picture is of the unfinished Living Room area.



Then you add a little stain...

And get this!

Look at the awesome job here.

No other word to describe this.

Awesome.

I could stare at this picture for days.










 This is the Living Room again, after stain.

And after adding a coat of polyurethane, this is the same shot.

The point where the two floors meet is along this wall.

Can you see a difference?

I can't. 

And I put them in.

And stained them. Myself.  By hand. 

Sorry for the boasting.  I'm just very proud of myself right now.  My hard work is paying off through the overly joyous feeling I get looking at this picture.



A HUGE Thank You goes out to Emily, Josh, and Traci, who also took a Thursday night and did miraculous things to my house.  These three are my personal heroes right now.  They came over and unknowingly subjected themselves to vacuuming, wiping, and tacking my floors on hands and knees to get up accumulated dust from painting, working, and days of general house repairs.  Without them I'm sure I would still be wiping up dust, sleep deprived, and emotionally drained.  You guys are wonderful!

Sheetrock!

We passed the rough-in inspection!  What that means for all those who don't speak contractor-ese is that the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC looks good and in working order.

That also means ...SHEETROCK TIME!

Jenn and Nate, and John's father, Benny, came over to help us sheetrock.

This is what the house looked like before:

 

We worked hard, took a lunch break:

 

And Look at all we got done!

It's starting to look like a shower and bathroom!

And finally we have a dining area and laundry closet!

Thanks Jenn, Nate, and Benny for all your hardwork!  It's nice to finally have walls again.

John and I consistently joke that after we tore this place apart it no longer looked like a house.  But now, it's starting to look like a house, again! 

Updates

Hi, That's me.  Standing in our living room, and the picture is taken from the front bedroom. (Sorry about the lighting...photo taken with the phone)

And in between?  Oh that.  That's our/John's built-in closet.  And by John's I mean he will have his own closet and I will have mine.

:)

Happiness people. is in the closets.

At least for some people. (me included)


If you can imagine those boards on the bottom being covered, having drawers, a nice shelving system and some short hang space in there that will be the total package when all is said and done.
It will have wooden shelving and drawers, which will also help the area look more tidy even when it's not.   And considering that most of John's hang-up clothes are shirts or slacks over the hanger, he has no long hang items.  This size fits great for a man's closet. 

In case you're thinking "I bet Dana's closet is HUGE compared to that", my closet in this same room is not as wide, but goes to the floor.  Which is perfect for the long hang items (dresses mainly) and still enough room to stack a few boxes of shoes. 

And not that closets and bathroom windows go together...but here is our bathroom window.

This one window, caused many a night of frustration.

You may be able to tell that this window was originally a full sized window.  In a bathroom -over a tub/shower - this is a problem.  And you can imagine why.  I won't go into details. 

Couple this with an idea of an option for a vented window here, and simply choosing this particular window became a daunting task.

Finally we decided on this window, this size, without the vents and I personally couldn't be happier.  We built up the wall so that the smaller sized window would fit and be the correct height.  The effect on the window allows light to come in and brighten the bathroom, but still has privacy for anyone in the shower.  The venting option was a safety issue for me, mainly because I'm a klutz and I could see myself hitting my head on the vent.  John wasn't as concerned for himself.  What can I say, he's a little more agile and coordinated than his wife.


We also had a few rough-in inspections today. 

But I'll leave that off until I get a few pictures...     : )