Finally the Flooring Post

I was waiting to post pics of the new floors until we got the baseboards in and the furniture back in place. That has all happened now for the most part (except for the huge hole in our sheetrock next to the fireplace, but more on that a little later). So, we finally were able to get everything together to have our existing wood floors re-finished, and to have them matched and extended through our living room and hallway. Those rooms get so much traffic that keeping the carpet looking nice was not happening, and I am just not much of a vacuumer... I prefer the broom :-)

Now, Noah and I are pretty ambitious DIYers, but this was a job that I just did not want to tackle ourselves. If we have learned anything in our short one year of home ownership it's the following:
1. Know your furthest limits of ability, then anything within those limits you should also seriously weigh the cost of hiring the job out to the amount of time, stress, and frustration of doing it yourself!
2. Then, if you do it yourself... buy or rent the RIGHT tools... the FIRST time!

At any rate, for the most part we are really pleased with the results. We went with a darker stain than what was originally on the wood, and it looks FANTASTIC. Especially now with our new white baseboards. The contrast is beautiful, and just makes my day (kinda nerdy, I know, but gotta appreciate these things that consume such a big part of our time and money nowadays)! We did the baseboards ourselves (and had to buy the miter saw to do it of course). It was also a lifesaver borrowing Rory and Cameron's paint sprayer...we had previously painted some baseboards by hand, and so with this big of a trim project, the sprayer literally saved our sanity. Our garage was covered in white paint spray by the end of it all, but oh well, we got most of it off with the pressure washer the next weekend (when we also cleaned and sealed the driveway... whoa buddy... that's another post in and of it self!).

So, here's a picture of the wood before - you can see the new wood installed in the living room before they sanded and stained:



Here it is with the new flooring laced into the existing:



And the final product!:





We love it, but at the same time it's one of those things that you want to stay perfect so we're always paranoid about scratching it or whatever. Even though it's inevitable it's almost comical how we are about things like little felt pads.

Oh, now back to the sheetrock hole... so, we removed the mantel from the fireplace before the floors went in. It just didn't reflect our style, and I want to build some built in bookshelves and surround for the fireplace to make it a little more cozy. So, when the mantel came off we discovered some water damage to the wallboard, and a bit of a musty smell. So, we let it dry out and eventually decided to cut out that section of the sheetrock. Well, once we did that, came to discover a gap between the house wall and the fireplace that went completely out to the outside! We could look directly outside from the inside.... NOT GOOD! Now I know that the older houses aren't as airtight and efficient as newer construction, but I think I'm safe to assume that this is a bit much! So at any rate, I guess in the end I'm glad that we discovered it so that we could take care of it. We caulked the crack from the outside... we just need to fix the inside now. So that will definitely be a future project.

Check it out: