Floors - from start to finish!

Hey! I finally sorted through all the floor pictures and pulled out the best ones for the slideshow below.

It all began Monday night, the day after Easter, when Mr. Andy Man started ripping up the rug. I have never smiled so much in my life. :) He went through it all pretty quickly - he cut the rug and padding up into smaller pieces - put it out in big bags for the garbage men - and it was gone by morning.

The workers (henceforth to be known as The Men - dubbed by Katie and Maddie) arrivecd Tuesday morning bright and early. The old plywood in the dining room was the first to go - and since there is only an empty crawl space underneath it, The Men just jumped down and stood on it so they didn't have to break their backs!

They were able to lay all the plywood down in the dining room and then they started ripping out the old hardwood floor in the living room. It was not in good shape, so I am glad we decided to go with new wood rather than try to salvage the old. All I heard for the rest of the afternoon was creaking wood being RIPPED out and there were nails everywhere. (Somehow, someway, the girls were able to nap everyday through the racket. The Men were impressed.) By the time they left on Tuesday only the subflooring was left in the living room. And of course they sweeped up. :)

Wednesday was the day everything happened! The Men tore through that subflooring and that's how I got the pictures looking down into my basement! The dust, of course, migrated right down there and I couldn't even walk. I figured Andy had a night of cleaning ahead of him. But why did I doubt The Men? They went down there with their Shopvac and cleaned it all up.

The plumber came on Wednesday, too, to fix a valve that was leaking, so that was a fun way for us to spend $180 and blow my budget for the month. Grrr....

Thursday went fast - all the new hardwood was down by the end of the day. It was great! The Men's backs were killing them though - I could tell. That nailer that they use to nail the wood to the floor is hefty - and they had to swing a mallet onto it twice for each nail. Two of them switched on and off - and got it all done. (I offered Advil - but they didn't want it.)

They came back Friday morning to put in new baseboards and fix some odds and ends here and there. I was out all morning so I never even saw them that day - so no pics of that, sorry!

Now the girls look for The Men every day and say, "The Men have to fix the floor" with big wide eyes, like "Mommy, where are they???" I tell them The Men are all done - and that we will see them again at the end of the summer when we get a new front door. (Hopefully!!!)

Here is a slideshow of the job from start to finish. (In case you catch the slideshow halfway through, the first pic is a shot of the living room fireplace with the rug rolled up in the middle and boxes of wood everywhere.) We still need to get throwrugs and put all the furniture back - I'll take those pics when that is all done. Say ... sometime next year ...

Enjoy! (After I downloaded the pics and made the slideshow I realized I downloaded them too small! Aargh! I'm not downloading them again, so you'll have to squint.)