A Little Home Remodeling

It all started with our worn out carpet in the living room.  It's a high traffic area because all paths must pass through it at some point.  We decided to put down wood flooring in the entire floor, living room and kitchen.  Jaaromy's parents had just put flooring down in two rooms of their house and recommended the company they bought the wood from.  We also decided that we wanted real wood and not laminate.  Later, I wondered if that was the best choice because it sounded like more work.

Picking out the right wood was surprisingly hard.  I had an idea in my mind of what shade and grain I wanted and I assumed it would exist.  We looked around the showroom forever looking for the right wood.  A couple of times I was sure I had found the one I wanted only to find myself in doubt minutes later.  In the end, we selected a sample that was right by the door and one of the first ones we looked at when we came in.  Of course.

It was bamboo so we were told that I has to acclimate for four weeks(!).  I began working on a plan for the whole project.  We decided to move the couch downstairs early so the wood could be in the same room that it would be in when finished.

 They said to stack them in a lattice pattern, presumably to maximize the amount of floor space required for the acclimation.

 I'm including these pictures to give you an idea of what it looked like before.  See the gross carpet?!

And the messy kitchen?!  I'm sure that a new floor will totally solve that problem.

For four weeks we made do without a couch in the living room.  Suki had fun chasing balls through the boxes.  Yes, she is that small.  Actually, we ended up keeping them like this for six weeks because the best time for the actual work was during Spring break.  It was a long wait.  In fact, most of the stuff in my last post happened while we were waiting for the boards to acclimate.

I actually started getting a little stressed about it as it got closer.  The original plan was to get started Tuesday night by tearing up flooring in the living room.  Then do the living room Wednesday, tear up flooring in the kitchen Thursday morning, the first day of Spring break, and start on the kitchen Thursday night and continue Friday.  Oh, didn't I mention?  My father-in-law was going to do all this with Jaaromy's help.  My FIL is very good at stuff like this, Jaaromy, the computer programmer, is a little less experienced.  The problem was that my FIL would be at work all day and so time was limited.  My worry wasn't that they wouldn't do a good job, it was that we were severely underestimating how long it would take.  Time was of the essence.  I have a strict routine in the mornings to get Brigham ready for school.  I really really super-duper didn't want to mess with it.  This is why the plan was to get it done over Spring break.  To top it all off, Jaaromy's brother and his family decided to come for a visit over Spring break.  I love them very much but I knew that my FIL would want to spend time with them, as do I, and our project would not get done.  That weekend was also General Conference and Easter.  I really wanted everything to be tidy by then.  So, yeah, I was feeling a little anxious about our plan.  Jaaromy talked me down from the ledge and we decided to start a week early and do it over two weeks.  The living room the first week and the kitchen the second week.  Whew!  A plan!

The day before we were supposed to get started, Jaaromy and I moved the furniture out of the living room and into their pre-selected spots.  Most of the stuff ended up in our room, the bookshelf and music cabinet.  Also, the sofa chairs, which I kind of miss having in my bedroom.  The piano and sofa table went in the hallway which was kind of tight but there just wasn't room anywhere else.  The next day was when the real work would begin.  Jaaromy wasn't feeling well and wanted to tell his dad not to come.  I told him that he didn't have to do anything if he didn't feel up to it but that I really wanted to get at least something done.  Jaaromy's dad came and started ripping up the carpet.  Yay!  I didn't have get to help because I had orchestra that night.  Rats.

Apparently, Jaaromy's dad's hard work inspired him to muscle through and they actually did more than they were expecting.  He sent me a text to show all their hard work.

Lookin' good!

One of my worries about the project was that it would be disruptive to routines, specifically Brigham's.  He did a pretty good job working around it.  He was even willing to have speech therapy on a blanket on the plywood in the living room.  And of course I still had them practice the piano.

It wasn't too inconvenient, as long as Brigham or Jonathan didn't need to get to their bedroom.

Finally, by Friday, the living room was finished!

 Not bad!

We moved the kitchen table into the living room so that we could begin work on the kitchen.  My FIL couldn't come on Saturday but Jaaromy got to work tearing up the kitchen floor.  That part was really dusty.  Not only the flooring had to go, but the island too.  Remember how this whole project began because we didn't like the carpet?  Well, in the planning process we decided to include a new island in the project.  It just never ends.  So, yeah, tearing out the island was super fun.  I know that sounds sarcastic, but I think Jaaromy actually enjoyed it.

There were still three more days of school before Spring break but Brigham was starting to see the project as a kind of new normal and it didn't hinder our morning routine, thank goodness.  It was kind of fun having the kitchen table in the living room, especially since it looked all fancy now.

We began work on the kitchen at the start of the new week and, after a few bumps, we finally finished.

Jaaromy was a little overzealous in cutting the pad that goes underneath the wood and accidentally sliced his arm.  Ouch!

All done!  Or mostly anyway.  The banister to the downstairs still had to be dealt with, but most of the hard work was done.  Yay!  My brother and nephew were so nice to stop by and help move the furniture back.  It felt so good having everything back in it's place.

Our fancy new living room needed a rug now.  I found the perfect one at Home Depot and we ordered it online and had it delivered.

The colors matched my couch cushions almost exactly!  I love it.

The problem now was that we had no island.  I was focused on the floor and hadn't thought much about the island.  It didn't occur to me that it might take time for them to, you know, build it and stuff.  Plus, we weren't really sure where to go.  We got an estimate at Home Depot and then got another one a Chris and Dick's for about $500 cheaper so we went with them.  It would take four weeks(!).  So, we made do with a temporary island.

 Better than nothing, but a little too short to be really useful.

 It gave us a place to put the old drawers while we waited for new drawers.

 After weeks of waiting and picking out granite, it finally came!  It looks so nice and it's super useful and everything!

Our old island had a section that stuck out to make room for a lazy susan.  I already have a lazy susan, I don't need two.  I much more useful cabinet would be one for cookie sheets and just a regular old two door cabinet for putting small appliances.  So much better!  I sort of forgot to get hardware, but the installer had to come back to fix something so I made sure to have some hardware for him to install when he came back.  I don't have a picture but, rest assured, it's awesome and I love it.

I finally have a place to put my groceries when I get home from the store!  Seriously, it really makes you appreciate the small things when your kitchen is out of whack for so long.  The whole process, start to finish, was almost two whole months!  I think I'm done with projects for a while.

Of course, we're going to have to refinish the cabinets now, you know, to match the fancy new island.

Seriously, it never ends.