It's 2012, and before the End of Days starts, let's look back at the previous year while we still can. You know...before we are all killed by the locust.

The first of the big projects this year was the corner storage bench. Dani asked for it as a birthday present, which is in late January. It wasn't put into the room until July. So I came in a little late, there.

We've got a lot of use out of it this year. We've since moved the dining room table to sit in front of it, and we’ve sat around it for many dinners when we have guests. Read these posts for the whole story:

• Corner Storage Bench: Designing
• Corner Storage Bench: Building
• Corner Storage Bench: Still Building
• Corner Storage Bench: In Place

 

The second big project of 2011 was the installation of the new flooring in most of the first level of the house. This had been in the top 5 of our wish list since the day we moved in, but it has always been cost prohibitive.  After frequently checking flooring supply centers, I finally located exactly the right amount of flooring for our project in a wood that was high enough on the Janka hardness scale to withstand the traipsing of our Dane's oft-neglected nails. 

There was a problem, though.  It was an "odd lot" from Lumber Liquidators.  I bought a bundle and brought it home, and easily 10% of it was damaged (cracked, warped, etc) and there were only 2 pieces at or longer than 48 inches.  The entire process was not without injury, anger, or disappointment, but the end result made it all worth while, and for an incredible value.  Check out that series of posts below.

• New Flooring Part I: Demo
• New Flooring Part II: More Demo
• New Flooring Part III: Fixing Subfloor
• New Flooring Part IV: Installation
• New Flooring Part V: Finishing
• New Flooring Part VI: The Reveal
• New Flooring Part VII: The Costs  (coming soon)

 

And there are, of course, a fair number of less spectacular things accomplished that are worth reviewing.. check out the archives for those.

We'd like to thank our readers for support over the last year.  The occasional prodding for content is a work light shining at unfinished projects, prompting me to get more things done, and sometimes we need that.  There's also the desire to have something good to tell you guys, and having that looming overhead is another strong motivator to get up and get to work.  

Here's to a fun, productive 2012!

Read More

  At last we come to it; the reveal of the flooring on the main level of the house.  If you’ve been reading along with this adventure, it started when I picked up an odd lot of 1170 sq ft of flooring from Lumber Liquidators for a steal of a price at $2.40 a sq ft. 

Then the fun started.  Demo.  More demo.  It goes on from there.

Part I: Demo

Part II: More Demo

Part III: Repairing Subfloor

Part IV: Installing

Part V: Finishing

I finally cleaned up all the flooring debris I dumped in the front yard, by the way.  Not the toilet, though.  I feel having a toilet in the yard is an accurate portrayal of life in this house for the time being, and should remain there until that is no longer the case. 

Speaking of things preposterous.  Here are some reasons this post took so long.

1. Thanks to the short days of winter, I leave for work when it's dark, and get home when it's dark again. This makes taking good pictures of flooring difficult. What about the weekends, you ask? That's when I go do things like the electrical rough in at Pikesville.
2. The DSLR's charger is missing. Things have a habit of vanishing when I bring them to Chicago with me. We went there for Thanksgiving, and I'm pretty sure I left the charger plugged into the wall, but now no one can find it. So the camera ran out of juice at about 11am on Christmas day.. so much for taking pictures in the sunlight on Christmas!
3. My keyboard is screwed up.  It keeps randomly launching programs in the middle of typing, as if the ‘window’ key was stuck down.  But it’s not.  This makes typing infuriating.  Windows Media Center launched as I was typing that.  I do not jest.
4. I got an XBOX-360 for Christmas (thank you Dani!!)
5. Then there's this buying-another-car thing. I don't know how much to say about this, yet, because I'm maintaining a certain level of pessimism about the whole thing. We can thank the United States Navy for instilling in me such a useful attribute. And for the sarcasm.

 

Enough excuses.. onto the reveal!

Let's start with the Family Room / TV Room.   Yeah, the room naming issue is still around.

This is how the room looked (Media Center just launched) when we toured it before buying.

That’s a fake cat, by the way.  I know, right?! 

And a couple of shots from during the flooring project.

And how it looks now.

 

Can (Media Center just launched) you believe the change?!  We love it.  Aside from the wall damage and missing base, I mean.

We love it so much we immediately set about covering as much of it up as possible. I don't know. That's what you do, I guess. Dani said "I don't want to put those couches back in this room."

We had been looking for months for a sectional that met her criteria, and couldn't find one. We found a great furniture sale where we could get a new one for $2300. So we were all set to go place our order when I did one last check on good ol' CraigsList and found this one for $575!

It's still the most we've ever spent on a single piece of furniture, but it's really comfortable, the color is great, and it's in wonderful condition. 

Onto the Living Room (aka Family Room). Here's how it looked (Media Center just launched) when we toured it in the summer of 2009.

We removed the draperies and carpet, painted, and distressed the fireplace.  Under the carpet, we found this room actually had a decent-looking original wood floor. Earlier, I explained why we had to rip it up, but here's how it looked before we did so.

 

Here's how it looks now.

 

I was surprised at the dramatic difference in the feel of the room from one type of wood floor to another.

That last picture is the only picture in which I was able to capture the mistake I made.  I sanded at an angle at the highest grit, because I read online that one should do that with new wood.  One should not. (Media Center just launched) It’s only visible in the right light, but it’s there, and it bugs me.

Lastly, the bathroom.

 

Not much to brag about there just yet.

I’ve got a draft working (Media Center just launched) for one last post in this series that will cover the costs.  We’ll see how long that takes.

 

So what do you think of our new floors?

Read More