Just a Small Project

We didn't start small with our first remodeling project.

The house had hardwood floors in the entry and adjoining dining room.  The family room had beige carpet, always my favorite (said with much sarcasm but with two kids carpet never stays beige in my world).  The kitchen sported whitish/beigeish tile with grout that was very light.  Again, grout in my kitchen especially never stays white.  Given our fondness for hardwood and DIY projects, we decided to rip out the carpet and tile and put in new unfinished hardwood.  We could strip the existing hardwood and finish it all at the same time.  And we could do it all in the 10 days between our closing date and the new tenant moving into our rental house.  Easy peasy lemon squeezey as my 7 year old says.

Oh, the best laid plans.

It started off great.  Until the Hubs discovered a sheet of linoleum under all that tile.  And approximately 10,000 nails through the linoleum that had to be pulled up.  He even broke an indestructible crowbar pulling up all that tile.

And he has some amazing friends who stayed up into the wee hours of the night to help lay some of our beautiful new hardwood.  They did an amazing job!

This helper didn't get to stay up into the wee hours but I think he's the cutest!

You can see the existing hardwood through the doorways and our new unfinished going in.

The stripping of the existing finish wasn't quite as easy as anticipated until we rented the second big floor sander.  Even Andrew got in on that action!  

Grace however was less than impressed with the noise of the sander and hammer.

Then it was time to stain and seal the new gorgeous floor.  That's when it went horribly wrong.  We plan to replace all the upstairs carpet with hardwood as well and thought we had a brilliant plan to install pre-finished hardwood upstairs.  So, we picked out a gorgeous chocolate brown floor that would look great with soft white trim and warm walls.  Again, the best laid plans.

This is the dye stain that the oh so helpful Sherwin Williams guy claimed we needed to match the finish we liked.  This is an in-progress shot of the first step.  There was a reddish toned wiping stain to go over the top after this dried completely.  The problem?  When it dried, it was BLACK!  It turned my love open family room/kitchen into a cave.  I hated it.

So, we quickly came up with Plan B.  One that involved moving everything into the upstairs, basement and garage.  A plan that led to renting no less than four additional sanders.  That's in addition to the 3 sanders we had already rented.  Because apparently newbie DIYers and dye stain don't mix well.  When they say deep penetrating, they mean it.  That stuff did not come up without a fight.  In fact it didn't come up 100%.  But we added a medium, neutral brown stain on top and we love it.  It's a little rustic, hides dirt well and transitions seamlessly between the new and old hardwood.

Did I mention that we couldn't move our new appliance into the house until the floor was finished?  I didn't?  Probably because I'm still traumatized by the two weeks we spent without a single kitchen appliance.  The only thing that saved my sanity was a 20 year old fridge we've stuck out in the garage of our last 4 houses  It's now my best friend.

We ate meals like this:

The kids thought it was a grand adventure.  Of course, being able to spend a week at my sister's house while we sanded, refinished and sealed was the best part for them.  And, really, the reason we made this trek back to the Midwest.  The kids had a blast playing with their sweet cousin and were relatively oblivious to the chaos going on in their new home.

It ended up taking about three times longer than we first anticipated, which we're discovering may be a trend for projects in this house.  But we did it!  And I still think it will look great with our soft white trim and new wall paint...

Home

Yes, my blog is sorely neglected but our household has experienced a few changes in the last few months. Apparently moving cross-country wasn't enough for us. Mommy went back to work, just part-time but even that was a big adjustment for a household used to mommy home 24/7.  This mama couldn't be happier. Yes, I miss my babies when I work but Grace was ready for preschool, Andrew is in school full-time and really, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I feel like I'm enjoying my family time more now that I have a little time away to remember who I was before kids and renew my passion in social work. Finally putting that masters degree back to work!

Our big news is that we found our home!  We told ourselves we wouldn't be in a hurry (really, we tried) and we would get to know the area to figure out where we wanted to buy. Well, we did get in a bit of a hurry but we didn't want to move the big kid mid-school year again. Our search was a little discouraging at times but relatively easy. We found a great house in the country, in a great school district. It was a bit out of town And needed some major renovations but it was going to be worth it, right?!  As I obsessively searched houzz.com for ideas, Kendal called the realtor. Less then 24 hours earlier they had gotten a contract. After sitting on the market for well over 6 months.

Being the glass-half-empty kind of girl that I am, I immediately decided we had lost our dream house and would spend months searching for a home to move into this summer.  Really I'm not a pessimist I just tend to jump to worst-case scenario on occasion.

Then we saw it.

 What...you're not overwhelmed with the awesomeness of the inside of this house?  Yeah, neither were we.  But we had traipsed through many other houses and more importantly had driven through a ton of different neighborhoods.  We researched schools and timed the drives to our offices and shopping.  When we drove through this neighborhood we saw trees...and kids playing outside...and a park within walking distance...and sidewalks...and couples walking their dogs...and close to shopping and work...and, well everything we said we were looking for.  We fell in love with the neighborhood.  We liked the house but didn't really fall in love with it until we started realizing the potential.  And realizing that it was just what we were looking for.  It's big enough for our family of four and a guest room but not a overwhelming amount of space.  We wanted a house we could DIY.  We love projects and wanted a house we could work on as a family and really make our own.  This house is a huge blank beige and honey oak canvas just screaming for our woodworking and painting skills.

We haven't wasted much time with the projects either.  Stay tuned for and update of our first remodeling projects but for now, we are glad to be home!