hardwood update

3 weeks ago we started laying 1000 square feet of hardwood!  It has been quite the job!  Chris works on it a couple of hours a night!  There is a lot of little jobs and "figuring out" when laying that much wood!  Not to mention a plumbing problem along the way that had to get fixed!  Needless to say it has taken longer than we thought but we are nearing the end!  Can I get an AMEN!!!  

Here is how we started in the dining room...we laid felt paper down (the black stuff), then I would arrange the wood and Chris would use the nailer to nail it in place.  At the end of the wall I would measure and try to find a piece that would fit (I'm kind of a puzzle nerd so that helped! HA)  If I couldn't find the just right piece I would have to cut one down using the miter saw.  Chris's ongoing joke is "how did I pick the wife who doesn't know how to use any "kitchen gadgets" but can use everything single one of my power tools.  

 See all these nails and staples in the plywood from the not 1 but 2 layers of linoleum...yeah those were not fun to take out!  That's what we like to call the grunt work folks!

 We had to demo the half bath downstairs...(please remember that most of the time I use the pronoun "we" I'm referring to Chris!)

 Some pieces have to be shaved long side.  Chris uses the table saw for those cuts.  I can use this saw but I do not like it!

 We wanted to run the hardwood continuously throughout all the rooms so we drew a chalk line to make sure it would all even out in the end.  Chris and I seriously ran about 1000 chalk lines this summer when we roofed the entire old house...it did NOT bring back fond memories...nope...not at all!

 See how it runs throughout both the dining room and the kitchen and into the living room...

 Sometime we had little helpers...

 Here is the tricky part about floors.  You get rolling laying the floor and then you have to make a tricky  cut...like this cut going into the pantry...I know you could probably guess but I don't "make" tricky cuts....I leave that up to the boss man!  

 They love to run in the saw dust and make footprints!  Yes remodeling (or what Chris is now referring to as..."basically building a house while living in it") is quite different with small children!

 Getting closer to the end!

 The wood stack is getting smaller!

 We took a break from finishing the main level to do the hallway upstairs.  We figured it would have a lot of traffic so we wanted hardwood in the hallway and then decided we had enough wood to continue it in the laundry closet.

 This is when we had to take a break for a day so Chris and Greg could fix a leak.  They switched this whole little mechanism out themselves!  With a little help from the Lowes plumbing dept. and trusty 'ol "YouTube" the washer is up and running again!

Did you make it through this extremely boring post???  All that to say that the original 3 day hardwood laying project turned out taking almost 3 weeks.  That's what happens when you take on a huge house project at the end of soccer season and your primary "help" is your almost 19 week pregnant wife!  Did I mention I married the hardest worker in the world??? Because I did!  Stay tuned for sanding and staining 101! HA!