Floor project!

The last week and a half has been very full of physical labor. We ripped the carpet out of all but the bedrooms in my house and are installing laminate floors. My house is a complete mess and I have been going to bed totally exhausted, but content. David's parents came this weekend to help get the majority of the floor layed. We had the house mostly prepped when they got here - carpet out, baseboards off, furniture out. We worked in the evenings all week last week to get it done.


And while we had the office empty, we took the opportunity to paint the dirty eggshell walls two shades of vibrant blue, which is getting mixed reviews from the peanut gallery. We like it though. If you are going to make the effort to paint, I say paint big. Andrea came over to help with the painting and Jackson enjoyed helping us paint as well. Though I will say that painting a room bright blue with a four-year-old's help is a lot of work. Especially since we were painting two walls darker blue and two walls lighter blue. Making sure he kept the right color on the right wall was tough. He desperately wanted to mix the colors.





He managed to survive the chaos of the weekend with no furniture by carrying around his little folding chair. Unfortunately, he broke out in ugly hives all over. We think he must be allergic to the cement dust and general yuck that we stirred up by tearing out the carpeting. Benadryl cleared them up mostly but we are keeping an eye on him since the floor isn't quite done and we still have a hallway of cement till the weekend.


The cats wandered around all week wondering what the hell was going on and why we were moving all the furniture they like to sleep on. They were so bewildered and funny. Of course as soon as the first boards in the living room were installed, Sarah cat took up residence on them and stayed there all afternoon as the work progressed.


While David and his parents worked on laying the floor Elaine and I prepped and repainted all the trim baseboards. I had no idea how nasty those things were till we took them off the walls and I got a close look at them. They are going to look so nice with fresh paint and a new floor.


And here are a couple of pics of the floor in the living room and office. They are both still a mess and these pics were taken before we got the baseboards back on. But you can see what a nice job David and his parents did laying the floor. It looks great. I will post finished product pics when we get all finished and the house put back together...in a few weeks...or months...however long it will take to put the chaos to rights.




The last two evenings have been spent putting back baseboards and caulking the gaps and putting some furniture back. We are already so beat from the prep and actual floor laying that we are taking our time and working as we can. We feel pretty productive and proud of how our first major home project is turning out.