A lot has happened since my last posting on the living room/dining room makeover on January 20th, and a lot hasn’t happened. I know, it’s funny to say that, but it’s the truth.
We took on the project knowing a few things:
- We weren’t going to kill ourselves to get this done quickly like we’d done with the rental remodels.
- Since we had a whole list of projects to get done before may, we’d just accomplish them one at a time.
- We’d teach our boys more “life skills” as we like to call it, or as they call it “free labor”. Whatever way you want to look at it, it works.
We’ve spent the last month working on the floors off and on. Mainly on the weekends, but also sometimes in the evening. Like when the hubby comes home after a rough day at work and says, “I need to destroy something!” Work seems to get done faster when that occurs.
Anyway, here’s the progress we’ve made:
Before:
During:
Can I tell you how dusty it was when they used the jack hammer to pull up the tiles? And can I also tell you that I never thought we’d be the one pulling up the tiles after we laid them over 15 years ago? And can I tell you yet again that we went a little crazy on the screws with the backer board?
Yeah, that was a real joy…
Completed: (well, sort of)
So when I say completed, this is in the looses sense of the word… The hardwoods are laid, and we almost had enough to complete the entire living/dining room with the salvaged floors from my parents remodel. That made the penny pinching Hubby very happy, in fact, since we only had to buy additional wood for about 1/8th of the remaining flooring project, he decided it was worth it to pay a professional to refinish them. Let’s just say I did a little dance of joy when he announced that to me!
I’ve also been testing out stains for the flooring and I think I’m gonna go with the Java finish. In the last two rental remodels we went with something similar, and I liked it. It’ll add a richness to the floors that will accentuate the other colors I already have in my home.
Stay tuned, before we have the floors refinished in April (fingers crossed), I’m remodeling the stairs and upper hall as well so we can have them refinished all at once. And the banister, after almost four years of being partially stripped, will finally have it’s day to shine.
