So, two weekends ago we ripped up the floor on the sitting area of the living room to bring the floor up level with the rest of the house.  That was the project before the project.  This weekend it was time to tackle ripping out the carpet and installing the new floors.

When we ripped up the carpet under the living room we found that there were pretty nice looking hardwoods under the floor.  We had a lot of comments that we should restore it, but since the front room is now a plywood base and our house is a bit on the cold side I wanted the extra layer the new flooring would add.  Also, when we ripped up the dining room area, the hardwoods had been covered with a thin layer of vinyl.  It was disgusting. We had to rip and tear and scrape the vinyl off the floor.  We ended up spending most of the first day scrapping vinyl and glue off the floor, and didn’t get to get started laying the underlay and actually start installing the floor until late in the day so we didn’t get very far.

Day number two started off better.  We got to work cutting and installing.  My husband refreshed my memory on how to use the chop saw and I had my first experience with the jig saw.  We had a productive morning until we realized we were going to have to make some really narrow cuts in the flooring and neither the chop saw, skill saw or jig saw was going to work.  We decided to break for lunch, a trip to the hardware store for a table saw, and to pick up our son.  When we returned home my husband made the needed cuts and we were able to get back on track.  Having the right tools makes all the difference. At around one o’clock in the morning we decided to call it quits until the morning. Everything hurt. EVERYTHING. (Note to self.  Make sure the bathtub is clean before you do anything that might make you think a soak in an Epsom salt bathed a good idea.  I didn’t have energy to clean the tub, and had to make do with a shower.)

Day number three was back at it cutting and clicking the flooring into place with a break for the little’s egg hunt.

When we were done hunting eggs, I clicked more pieces together until my husband sent me with the little to Grammy’s house.  When we returned a few hours later, the hubby was laying the final piece into place.

 

This has by far been one of my favorite projects with my husband.  We only wanted to strangle each other once.  There was awesome team work on this project and I got to use power tools, (which if you’ve never done I recommend you try, always under the supervision of a capable adult of course.)  It also just so happened our kitchen project from a few years ago popped up in my facebook newsfeed.  I find it a little ironic that we pick the same exact days every few years to do our projects.  I wonder what next years will be?