Big News (with pictures!!)

We have a new great room floor!!





After a bit of unpleasantness on my part last week (Mamma had a meltdown; it wasn't pretty), Husband enlisted Bowyer's help and ripped up, then reinstalled the wood in the great room! It's GORGEOUS!

I spent Friday out - first having lunch with my old graduate seminar group, then driving up to the hinterlands to spend the night with WeedWoman - and I didn't know that a floor install was in the plans. Bowyer came over on Friday afternoon and the two of them ripped the old floor up, rented the necessary compressor and staple gun, and bought the paper. What's the paper for, you ask?





We don't know, but the contractor who put down the other wood floors used it, so my men did, too.

The men managed to get through about a third of the job by the time I got home on Saturday afternoon. From there, we all worked well together: Bowyer worked the stapler and the big hammer, Husband did all the exact measuring, and I was the feeder, handing wood to Bowyer so he could staple it down.



We had EXACTLY enough wood to do the entire thing. See this little pile? Nine pieces. That's all we had left over. That's what you get when you're not too picky about how every piece looks ("Bah!" Bowyer said to yucky pieces, "Bury that one in an edge!") and you've got an engineer working the chop saw.




I am SO excited that things are really moving along now. The counter guys are supposed to come back tomorrow to install the finished countertops, which means I'll have the stove and new sink installed by Sunday (hopefully!). For all intents and purposes, my kitchen will be DONE; all that's left is the installation of some handles, a couple of high cabinets to install over my desk, and toekicks.

Then we move upstairs.....