The wood floors are down!

We've been in a frustrating pattern for several weeks of take two steps, back one, up three, back two... you get the idea... so sorry I haven't updated lately and sorry this post is like forever long.

The wood floors were laid last weekend by a really great (and fast!) flooring crew and we're sooo happy with how they turned out! We used a mix of red & white oak wood, rustic grade. David found the wood flooring on Craigslist last year -- I'll have to more to say about that in just a minute. There are plenty of worm holes, burns and knots in every room; tons of character. It's a very cozy farmhouse look with the floors being done. I just *love* them.

The flooring will have to acclimate (spelling? who needs spell check!) for 10 days once the HVAC unit gets kicked on and then they'll come back in to sand it and put the stain on. We chose the "antique brown" stain by MinWax -- it's a little lighter then I picked at first but David wanted a nice brown versus my dark walnut so I think it's a good compromise. Plus they say it'll darken over time too. They are beautiful either way.

David found us some wood floor vents online from a really nice vendor. They sit flush with the flooring and will be stained at the same time too. This company seems to take good care of their customers; our orders were shipped right away and packaged perfectly so we didn't end up getting broken or chipped pieces. It's not much fun to order something and wait on it to be delivered, only to find out it's broken and has to be returned... then you wait again; we've had this happen for sure. I will try to remember to post the company info that he used in case anyone else is interested in checking them out.

Now for the super awesome news! As I was saying before, David found this great deal on wood flooring on Craigslist last year. There was a local couple who was going to build a house but ended up not being able to -- they had found this flooring at an auction and bought it, intending to use it in their new house. Well, to make a long story short... we bought it for a good deal (around $2400) and the man told us it was enough to do a 2500 square foot house. Perfect! Our house is right around 2000 sq ft plus plenty for trash pieces, waste, etc. We were really happy with the deal... sooo...

Fast forward to last weekend when David had to unload it all from the house. To say it was a pain would be an ultimate understatement. He busted (shredded really!) a tire on the interstate trying to haul the massive loads from the storage unit (20 minutes away) to the house even though he took small loads each time; he had to unload it bit by bit up the front steps and stack it in different areas so the load on the floor joists wouldn't be too much {who knew wood flooring could weigh 6000 pounds?!??!}, then he had to sort through some of it and get out the really bad pieces that were really junky and knotted thru the other side, etc. This took him several nights... on nights after his full-time job was over... because it rained all weekend so he couldn't move it in the rain... and with his bad back that gives out without notice and puts him on the couch for days at the time. He was in pain -- both physically & mentally I'm sure but he's such a trooper, he got it done. ;)

BUT --> he was thinking to himself, man this looks (and feels!) like A LOT more than just 2500 square feet. So imagine our surprise (or atleast mine!) when the flooring crew got there and said we had over 5000 sq feet!!! We'd have more than 3000 sq feet left over -- to sale! and make our money back! Woohoo! Now, is that a deal or what???

The stinky part was that David had to go back down there the next night and move the left over 3000+ sq ft back OUT of the house so the crew could finish flooring the rest of the house. But, we'll sell it and pay for pay for our wood and maybe some of the cost of hiring a crew to install it too! So that good deal got even better! :)


This is the living room, looking into the kitchen....



From the kitchen, looking into the living room...


A close up of the neat worm holes...

I thought this dark wood looked really neat!

And this was Davids favorite piece --> burl wood?

And below is one of the wood floor vents just roughly thrown in there...

So, what do you think about the floors?

I know I've said this over & over but... it's so neat to see the house all coming together --> even though it's frustrating dealing with county codes who work on their own schedules & aren't very clear on expectations to the lay person who has no clue (I think they do that on purpose!); the electric dept who fail you a year ago on your ditch (who even knew ditches were THAT important?? lol) and just tell you now AFTER you've been waiting for a meter for DAYS; and the great sub crews that don't show up/call you back/or half do their jobs... all in all, it's soooo worth it! ;)