Here you see a few lengths of bamboo laid out to show the color. By tomorrow evening the floor should be laid and the furniture back in place. Of course unless the cleaning fairies show up, my job will be just beginning!
Count your blessings! My floor began to be put down in March of 2011 and was finally completed this summer! Looks like yours will be done in record time!
@allie912 Some time in 2010 Jeff and I decided we really wanted to put wood flooring in the living and dining room areas. A friend of ours has a flooring business and he was looking to tile the master bedroom in his home, so Jeff and Ty bartered their services and some materials. Ty said he'd give us a call as soon as he had some free time. The following year, Ty gave us a call in March and said "I've got a week free and I can come and do your floor" but Jeff wanted to extend the tiled area in front of our woodstove and front door before the flooring went in so he told Ty to give him a few days before he came. Jeff wanted to rip out all the carpet when he started the tiling, but, I said, until Ty was knocking on the door I did not want the carpet coming up! Thank goodness I insisted because by the time Jeff finished the tile, Ty was no longer available. So we waited for the next opening. And we waited and waited. Finally in July of 2012, Jeff was agitated enough from the waiting that he called up Ty (who was also storing the wood we were going to use for the floor) and told him he was going to get the wood at least and let it acclimate to the house. Ty was fine with that and it did seem to spark some commitment in him to get here, but as usual, we got the wood and his time filled in preventing him from coming. Once again, Jeff wanted to rip up ALL the carpeting, but I wouldn't let him unless he could commit to putting the floor down himself the following day. As Jeff was also busy then, the carpet remained but now I had a 4 foot wide, 2 foot high and 6 foot long pile of flooring in my living room (thankfully placed in an out of the way area- but still quite visible!!) I must admit that it did come in handy for some 365 shots- but I also complained a lot about it too! So that was 2012- finally in May of 2013 all the planets aligned- Ty was free, Jeff was free, and I had a reason to be out of the house while they turned my world upside down. However, what was supposed to take 4 days from start to finish took 2 months! First, we used a wood called Siberian Larch. It's a wider plank and variegated in color, and very sturdy. We wanted that because if our grandchildren came to visit we didn't want to be worried about the floor. We decided to use Tung oil instead of staining for a similar reason- it's easier to touch up dings and dents with a dab of oil rather than having to resand and restain. BUT 3 unforeseen problems arose. 1) May of 2013 turned out to be one of the hottest and muggiest Mays we've had in years. The week our floor was put down, a couple days made it into the 90's! 2) We did not know that Siberian Larch has a very high resin content so that when you are trying to oil it, it somewhat resists the moisture as it already has quite a bit in it. Add that to a muggy day and it doesn't want to take it at all. 3) When you are working in muggy weather it triples the time it takes to apply the oil so what was supposed to happen in 20 minutes generally took 2 hours. That stretched the oiling process out to 3 days. After the oil finally soaked in, it took an entire month for the floor to completely dry. During that time we had to walk on the floor with plastic bags over our shoes and feet. The furniture that we'd moved out which was supposed to quickly go back in- was out of commission the entire time. My couch was on the neighbor's porch, all my other seating was in the back bedroom and the dining room furniture was in the kitchen (which is not meant to have a table for 4 in its center!) Just when I thought it would be safe to go back in my home again, Jeff said, "You know, we really should paint these rooms while we have all the furniture out..." So, yes, another 3 weeks went by while we waited for the guy who had the ladder which would reach the top of our cathedral ceiling was available. I still do not have everything back on the walls BUT my furniture is back and it's looking more home-like each day as I get things back on the wall and put things back in order. So that's the WHOLE story- or at least what's done of it. I still have one wall that must be painted (the one in the dining room that goes into the kitchen) and Jeff is threatening to tear out the backsplash which we've had tile for as long as we've had plans to put down a wood floor in the living room. The saga continues...
You call them cleaning fairies...I only know what they were called when I was a child - "Heinzelmaenchen".I'm afraid cleaning up is my department. we have wooden floor in the kitchen and dining room. so much easier to keep clean.
December 20th, 2013
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