new floors

there were two big projects that absolutely had to be completed before our roommate arrives: resod the front yard and replace the carpet in the living and dining rooms. the sod was done weeks ago and the yard now looks 100% less crappy thankyouverymuch. with the floors looming over us, we took stock and decided to head out to look for laminate materials last weekend.

we. got. lucky. we hit below our budgeted price point and the place was just down the street. we were pretty excited. so excited, in fact, that we moved everything out of those rooms except for the massive china cabinet and the couch. i scheduled friday off and we set to work thursday night doing demolition. with the last of the furniture removed, things looked like this:







tearing out the carpet was a breeze. and yanking out the tackstrips only went to prove to me that the builder was not interested in the finest concrete makind has produced. but whatever. with the help of our good buddy bryan we had the china cabinet out and the demolition done in about an hour. then we ate pizza (i told bryan he had to stop and eat NOW before SG inhaled it all…apparently, the baby LOVES pizza).

with the carpet up, it looked a lot like this:

notice how we’re still silly and loving life. we had yet to really begin to work. somewhere deep down i knew that, but we were still having fun with it.

since the night was still young and we were planning to take friday morning to drive out to where SG went to redneck college and pick up the 1/4 grass-fed cow that we’d oredered weeks ago (and man was it good…steaks for dinner saturday night proved that this is the way to eat cows!) we decided to be crazy and put down the padding. it looked easy enough! and it was. so much so that i decided that it was my turn to be in a picture (nobody ever takes pictures of dads during pregnancy).

friday came and we got our beef. then we started slapping down the flooring. it goes very quickly once you get the hang of it. and honestly? it’s a one person job. which turned out to be quite handy since SG isn’t much for bending over these days. but she did have two very important jobs that really saved us some time. first, she got to stand on the boards as i clicked them into place (this kept things from popping up and bringing down a storm of profanity that might have disturbed our lil dude) and working the power tools. hey, you don’t have to bend over to use a compound mitre saw!

friday saw most of the floor go down. after we got about halfway through the living room (did i mention that the whole project was about 580 sq ft? no? yeah. that’s a lot of floor) betty and ken came to take us out for dinner and give “baby james” his first easter gift. let me assure you, it got to him.

that’s some seriously cute bread. really. i almost felt bad when i bit its face off. but the buttery tasty goodness made it all ok somehow.

after dinner with the in-laws, we hit it again. by the end of the evening, all of the floor was down. and we figured out why it is that we don’t take pictures of men when they’re expecting:

i remember being wiped out like that a few times in my life, but wow, i look pretty special there. so much so that i didn’t even notice when SG snapped the pic.

saturday morning i felt pain like i haven’t felt in quite some time. muscles i never knew i had were screaming at me. it would seem that crawling around on the floor all day isn’t for me. huh. whoda thunk?

and yet we still needed to get transitions and quarter round to finish things off. our numbers were off so i had to take a break from swearing, i mean putting in the transitions and quarter round, to pick up more. after another day on my knees, we were done. a trip to target to get some rugs and assorted items earlier in the day really finished everything off quite nicely.

before bed we put all of our furniture back into place and i sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor. that is to say i fell onto the couch and couldn’t move for a good thirty minutes.

in the end, it looks like a new house. it’s almost like we were on one of those home make-over shows only we paid for it all and did all of the work. so i guess…um…it’s nothing like that. except that i did get to work with a hottie who is good with powertools!

and i should mention that porschea is beside herself. she hates it. running around on this stuff is like trying to sprint on an ice rink. she keeps to the rugs in the middle of the room and is doing some serious pouting because she knows that she’ll never win at tug again.