More Floors

Okay… I realize that our floors have been complete for a while and that this post is more than 2 months overdue.  But better late than never, right?

As mentioned before Craig and I  decided to carry the new wood floors from the kitchen, family room, and hallway into the living room and dining room.  Previously the living room and dining room had old, dirty, mint green carpets (the same as the ones we ripped up and replaced in the bedrooms not long after Bailey was born).

We very happily removed the old carpet, which left us with the concrete subfloor (please overlook the giant white elephant old refrigerator in the room… we had nowhere else to put it while we negotiated its sale).

We had to do a little prep work (sanding off the adhesive from the old carpet pad, cleaning the concrete subfloor, etc.) before we could lay the new wood floors.

Then we got back to work gluing the new bamboo flooring down. 

It took us a few days/evenings/afternoons to get it done since we didn’t have my dad helping this time, but once again I think the hard work paid off! 

Keep in mind the rooms aren’t 100% done… we’ve still got plans for upgraded furniture and furnishings.  But even with that, isn’t it beautiful?  Craig and I just LOVE the way continuing the floors into these two rooms makes the whole house feel larger and more cohesive.  It really seems to add to the “flow” of things… don’t you think?

Closet Flooring

We’ve spent a lot of evenings and weekends trying to finish up the new flooring project that we started back in late May.  We never expected that it would take us this long to get ‘er done.  But I guess we hadn’t realized just how difficult large projects like this can be with work, a child, and summer traveling.  We also didn’t realize that we’d have so many unexpected obstacles in our way. 

One of the biggest obstacles was in the coat closet in the hallway.  You see, our coat closet was home to a curious little surprise.  We’ve known since we moved in that there was a metal panel bolted to the floor in the coat closet.  We weren’t quite sure what was under it (buried treasure?  Jimmy Hoffa’s body?  or maybe traces of some lost civilization?), but guessed that it was probably covering an old vent from the home’s former heating system.

Unfortunately, the metal panel stuck up about 3/4 inch above the old parquet flooring, which meant that we wouldn’t be able to simply lay the new flooring over top of it.  Instead we would have to remove the panel (unlocking the secret hidden beneath it) and hope for the best.  So, Craig got to work removing the panel while I stood curiously behind him with my fingers-crossed that it wouldn’t be something too big for us to handle/fix.

Thankfully, our suspicions were correct (that’s right… no treasure or bodies).  It was covering a very old, nasty, rusted return vent which we removed to uncover a very, very LARGE hole (2-3 feet deep) in the floor. 

At this point we had to just stop and think for a while about what the heck to do next.  Our final solution was this:

1. Build a frame out of 2 x 4’s to place inside the hole.
2. Peel back the metal sides of the air duct to form a lip. 
3. Cut a square piece of plywood to cover the hole.
4. Fill the metal lip with concrete (to help secure the plywood square).
5. Place the plywood square on the lip and tap into place.
6. Finish things off by using concrete (left over from the floor repair work we had to do in the kitchen) to cement the plywood square in place and level things off in preparation for the new flooring to be laid.

Once things were left to set in place we were ready to lay our new bamboo flooring.

What a HUGE improvement over what it looked like in there before!  Now our coats have a pretty floor to enjoy!

Installing the Floors…

…in the kitchen and family room turned out to be a lot of work (which we were totally expecting).  But the hard work definitely paid off in the end!

As mentioned in a previous post Craig and I decided to install our new carbonized, strand-woven bamboo floors ourselves to try to keep the overall cost for our big kitchen/family room renovation project down.  Since our house was build on a concrete slab we had no choice but to glue down the new flooring.

Before we could start installing things we had to “prep” the old floors by patching the holes where the old base cabinets used to be and leveling out some of the high spots (most of this we could do with a sander, but some areas actually required Craig use his router to take the old flooring down by as much as 1/4 inch).  We also had to prep the new flooring by opening the ends of the boxes and letting them acclimate for three days prior to installation.

Once the prep work was done we were ready to install.  The flooring guys at Lumber Liquidators told us that it would probably take us 5 days to glue down the 1000 square feet of flooring that we bought (not just for the kitchen/family room, but also for the hallway, living room, and dining room). We decided to take advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to get a 3 day start on the installation. Thankfully my parents were able to come up and help. My mom kept Bailey entertained for the whole weekend while my dad helped Craig and I with the floors.

Before we started we opened up several boxes so that we could pull a mixture of planks for each row to be glued down (to make sure that we got a nice, random mix of colors).  We also laid out our first couple of rows to make sure that we had the color combination that we liked.

Then Craig measured things out, snapped a chalk line (to use as our guide for the first row) and began spreading the glue.  While Craig worked the glue down the line, my dad and I started laying the planks.  We had to be extra careful to keep the rows straight (or it would throw off the rest of the flooring) and tap out any of the gaps.  After doing this we taped the rows together (to try to prevent any gapping or movement) and then rolled the new floors over with a 100 lb. roller (to make sure the boards had good contact with the glue). 

The glue had to set for 24 hours before it could be walked on, so we had to do the work in sections (so we’d have a path to get in and out of the rooms).  By the end of weekend we had completed the kitchen, family room, and about 1/2 of the hallway.  Not bad for three novice flooring installers!

And now that the flooring in the kitchen is done we can move in the new refrigerator and dishwasher!  Which means we’re one more HUGE step closer to being finished with the kitchen … unfortunately we’re still far from getting the whole house back to normal since we still have to rip up the old carpets in the living room and dining room and finish installing the bamboo flooring throughout the rest of the house (with the exception of the bedrooms and bathrooms).

Oh well… there’s always next weekend!  Anybody want to come visit help install some floors?  We can pay you with pizza and beer!  And hey… you would be learning a new trade in the process!  Doesn’t that sound like a fun way to spend a weekend?!?

The Last Few Days…

…have been pretty busy around the Leonberg house!  We got quite a few things checked off of our to-do list in preparation for our sheet rockers…

…such as leveling the floors where our old cabinets and built-in book shelves used to be (since there was no parquet under them)…

…replacing all of the wiring in the family room and kitchen and connecting it to our new 200 amp box in the laundry room (which turned out to be a lot more mentally challenging than I expected)…

…moving the plumbing (since our new plan has the sink centered under the window and the fridge moved to the other end of the kitchen)…

…reinsulating (by far the absolutely worst job of the entire kitchen project thus far)…

…and attaching little metal thingies stud guards (to make sure that the sheet rockers don’t screw into any of our new plumbing).

Amazingly, we were able to get all of this done by Wednesday (right on schedule)!  Next up… sheetrock!

Flooring!

The new flooring has finally been ordered and I can’t tell you how happy that makes me!!! We actually started looking at flooring (way back in early December) long before we started looking at cabinets or countertops or anything else kitchen related.  We went to dozens of stores (Lowe’s, Home Depot, Edens Carpet One, DPM, Compton’s, Lumber Liquidators, Bristol Flooring, Floors 4 U, etc.) to try to narrow things down, but ended up even more confused.  So we basically dropped the flooring ball for a while.  So, needless to say I am VERY happy to see “purchase flooring” crossed off the ole’ listeroo! 

Our plan is to lay our new flooring over top of the existing parquet flooring (in the kitchen, family room, entry hall, and hallway that leads to the bedrooms).  We attempted to remove the parquet, but failed miserably.  We discovered that this task would not be worth the time or effort it would take to do it.  So instead we’ll just bury the old stuff under the new stuff!  We also plan to rip up the old mint green carpet (in the living room and dining room) and replace it with the same new wood flooring.  We think having the same flooring throughout (with the exception of the bedrooms which were recently recarpeted and the bathrooms) will make the house feel more cohesive and open up the space!  I had no idea, however, that there would be so many different decisions and choices to make in regards to flooring.

The first question we had to answer was… What type of flooring do we want?  Laminate?  Engineered wood?  or Solid wood?  There are pros and cons for each of these options, so it was definitely not an easy choice.  But after much discussion (and hours of online research by Craig and countless visits to local flooring stores) we finally decided that we wanted a solid wood floor. 

The next question we had to answer was… What type of solid wood do we want?  Oak?  Maple?  Cherry?  Bamboo? Hickory?  Koa?  Teak?  and the list goes on and on…  We spoke with dozens of flooring guys about which species of wood would stand up best against us, our dog, and our child.  We took home several samples which Craig torture tested (i.e. dropped hammers on, tried to cut with knives, and left sitting in bowls of water over night) to see what might be the most durable and stand the test of time.

All of our research (at home, online, and in the stores) showed that bamboo, more specifically strand woven bamboo, could be a very smart choice for us.  It’s the only species of wood that was rated over 100% for both stability and hardness on the chart below.  I mean it just blows northern red oak out of the water!  Plus it’s an environmentally friendly choice… so kudos for that too!

So once we knew what type of solid wood we wanted (strand woven bamboo) the next question we had to answer was… How do we want to install it?  Nail it (which would be easiest, but we can’t do since our house is built on a slab)?  Float it (I hadn’t realized that you could do this with a solid wood, but apparently you can)?  or Glue it (which could be difficult and time consuming)?  Again, there were pros and cons with each.  But in the end we decided that we wanted to do a glue down installation… I guess we’re just gluttons for punishment or something.  But we really think (or rather we hope) we’ll end up with a nicer finished product!

Once we decided on what we wanted it was time to compare prices everywhere.  We reviewed all of the notes that we had taken at all of the different stores we visited.  And the winner was… drumroll please… Lumber Liquidators!  They had the best prices by far!  And since we were going to need about 1000 square feet (or two pallets of wood) flooring they were offering us a $0.10 discount per square foot (which is apparently fairly common practice in flooring, but exciting none-the-less!)!

We revisited the store (a couple of times) and LOVED their bamboo selection!  We fell in love with their 3/8” x 3-3/4” carbonized strand woven bamboo (in the picture above it’s top row, second on the left). We think the color is warm and rich without being too dark or red. It’s a happy medium for us, which we really like!  I guess you could say we were “bamboozled” by Lumber Liquidators’ carbonized strand woven bamboo!

So, the plan (for over a month now) has been to purchase this flooring from Lumber Liquidators.  In fact, we even drove over to the store about a month ago with the intentions of buying the floors, but then realized that we’d have no place to put it until we were ready to install (Since our cabinets and appliances have been delivered and our kitchen and family room have been emptied out, space is currently at a premium in our house).  So, we just decided to put the purchase on hold until the kitchen project was a little further underway. 

Turns out we definitely made the right choice!  Low and behold, over the weekend Craig received an e-mail from Lumber Liquidators saying that they are having an “End of Quarter Clearance” on all in-stock floors.  Score!  I ran over to the store earlier this week and talked to the salesman about what exactly the sale was (a.k.a. how much moolah could we save).  On top of the $0.10 discount we would already get they were offering an additional $0.30 off per square foot!  That $0.40 total discount per square foot equaled a $400 total savings on the floors!  Cha-Ching!!! 

So the moral of the story is not that the early bird impulsive shopper always catches the worm best deal, but that good things really do come to those who wait!

New Carpets and Master Bedroom Redo Part I

At long last we have replaced our old, nasty, stained, mint green carpets in all of the bedrooms!!! I have been wanting to rip out the old carpets since the day I first saw the house and I can not tell you how excited I was to FINALLY tackle this project!

First we ripped out the old carpets in the guest room, nursery, and master bedroom...

... under close supervision from Sydney of course.
Next we removed all of the old padding...

... again with some help from Sydney!

Then came the installation which we decided was best left up to the professionals. We are so happy with the results! DEFINITELY a HUGE improvement over the old stuff!

Our new and improved guest room!

Bailey's beautifully carpeted nursery!

We decided that while we had the old carpets pulled up in the master bedroom that we would FINALLY paint and make a few other improvements! I can't believe I've lived in this house for over 2 years and we haven't so much as painted in our bedroom.

So we tackled the messy job of patching , sanding, and painting the walls and ceiling...
...then Craig installed a new ceiling fan to replace the old ugly light that had been there before.

We still have several things to do before the master bedroom is complete--crown molding, closets, curtains, bedding, etc. but I think we're off to a decent start. I can't wait for it to be finished!