Take an Aleve and call me in the morning

That should have been the theme to the work that happened here yesterday. We are having visitors this weekend so the pressure is insurmountable to get the house ready. Let me tell you now, it will not be ready. It will be very close but not completely done.

J left work early and finally at 11:00 pm, having nailed in the last board and placed the furniture. we headed upstairs to bed. The alarm went off 3 times this morning and each time I could literally hear the bones moaning and cracking as J went to turn it off. I got up a bit later and I think it took me 5 minutes to make it outside the bedroom door. Needless to say, we won't be putting in another day of flooring like yesterday without some sufficient recovery.

Now, look at all this glorious bamboo flooring! I need to go buy one very large rug because I'm an OCD wreck about things scratching the floor. This might be a long 3-4 years! Oh, and I actually unpacked our decor this week. I had grown so accustomed to the minimalist look that I almost thought the room look cluttered with decor.

Just for comparison, here is the living room when we found the house. I am still deciding what kind of curtains to place on the huge wall o'windows; suggestions are welcomed.

The floor and more

You would think an entire weekend of work would yield a lot of wood floor installed. Nope, the websites really are accurate when they say you can install about 200 sq. feet per day as a DIY job. J got the rooms measured and the first row of flooring adhered on Saturday. That was time consuming but I guess if we want straight rows it was worth it.
We worked for seven hours on Sunday and installed approximately 180 square feet of flooring.

Day 2 finished the rows across the front of the house up to the stairs. J had a difficult time installing the last couple of boards in front of the staircase.

Day 3 brought the wood into the dining room; it is now a little over half way finished. We also put a few more rows down in the formal living until J had to earn his money with IT help. OK, he doesn't actually get paid to help family members with IT issues but he loves me so much he does it for free. Gotta love him.

Take years off your life

Want to know how to have a panic attack that will last an entire weekend? Wake-up Friday morning to find this lovely stain across your dining room floor. One sweet princess left her lunch box in her backpack and the apple juice leaked onto the wood floor. However, this was not evident for 2 days when the striking black ghost showed up. If this were our own house I might not have reacted quite as strongly. Oh to the contrary; we currently rent directly from the owner who views this as her mini dream house. I just knew our entire security deposit would be lining her pockets for some time to come. The next week I set out to find a match to the wood and see what repairing the damage entailed.

Want to know how to have a major coronary? Take a circular saw to your wood floors and chisel out 9 boards. Yep, as soon as that blade hit the floor and I saw the sawdust fly I needed the epinephrine. I could feel my entire security deposit fly into the bright white light. Somehow we held it together while J and I chiseled out the boards, measured and cut the new boards and finally glued them all down. As with all home projects, it was not complete without a trip to Lowe's AND Home Depot.

There aren't many pictures quite as disturbing as a circular saw in the dining room of someone else's mini dream house.

At the end of the day we have a dining room floor that is stain-free and our handy work is only barely noticeable. We are ready to floor the new house!