New Floor!

Well, as most of you know, we've been working on putting brand new hardwood flooring in the living room and dining room of our house. It's been a huge project that has definitely taken longer than expected, but is well worth the time and effort put in. I've waited to blog about it until it was completely finished so I could show the before, during, and after pictures. It took about a month from start to finish but we were only 'displaced' for a little over 2 weeks. We started tearing out carpet one Saturday and we found some interesting layers of flooring under the carpet. Then, during the next week, Karlo started laying new sub-flooring followed by the new oak flooring that we got a GREAT deal on! While we took out old flooring and started laying new, we just sort of moved the furniture around as best we could. Abbie and Kallie did really well for a few days, but it became hard for them to be out of their routine and somewhat ignored while Karlo and I were working on the house. They watched a lot of movies and just tried to stay out the way..........SOMETIMES! Then, when it was time to start sanding and finishing the floor we had to move all the furniture to the bedrooms and move ourselves out! We also decided to paint the baseboards, trim, and the dining room walls while all the furniture was out, which turned out great! So, after lots of hard work on Karlo's part, and a little bit of my own, our beautiful new floor is done! So, here are all of the pictures and we'd love for any of you to come see it in person anytime you'd like. The pictures really don't do it justice! Enjoy and Until next time.......
Here's the before pic.....

Once we pulled up the carpet Karlo said, "Uh Oh! Now you've commited me to following through on this thing!"

This was the first layer of flooring under the carpet in the dining room......

This was the second layer of linoleum in the dining room......YUCK!

Then we found this! 1949 & 1950 newspapers spread all over the floor. Karlo, always the collector, saved them all and it's been interesting to read some of them. He's hoping they might be worth something!

Here are the original floorboards of the house. It was built in 1920 so.....

Of course, Abbie and Kallie wanted to help so Abbie put on her hard hat and "helped" Daddy fix the big hole in the dining room floor!

Kallie saw her Daddy drawing lines on the floor with chalk so she decided to help out with that! Karlo was trying to mark where the floor joists were in order to lay the new subfloor. I bet you can't guess which line he drew and which one is Kallie's! HAHA

Here is the new subfloor.......


Finally, the new wood flooring is all laid in place and after filling and many nights of sanding we were ready to start staining!

Here is our beautiful "custom color" stain..... We thought the english chestnut was too dark and the red chestnut was too red so Karlo decided to mix them together and we are very pleased with the outcome.

And Here is the finished product. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and it has already proven to be the greatest thing with children in the house. Kallie "initiated" it just recently when she threw up on it and Abbie spilled milk and cereal on it right away. I was so thrilled to just be able to wipe up the messes and not have to scrub the carpet!!!!! My friends have asked if I'm going to get a rug for the living room and I think I will, but not until Kallie is potty trained, maybe by the end of summer!

So, although it was a long and sometimes frustrating project, we are very happy with the results!