I've got wood.

I haven't posted an update of our renovation (with pictures) in such a long time, so this weekend, while working at the house, I dug out my camera and got down to business. In two days, my father-in-law and a crew of three other men (myself and Husband excluded) put down over 1,100 feet of creamy chocolate bamboo hardwood, which promptly caused me to orgasm multiple times. It is not the same house that it was a week ago. Not even close. This is now a place that we could, like, actually live in.

The first step in the process was removing the ugly blue tile and pet-hair infested carpeting that ran throughout the downstairs. Then went the carpet pad and the lauan and approximately 800,000 staples that had to be removed by hand from much of the area with just a screwdriver and hammer. Then the remaining lauan that had been glued down had to be scraped and sanded off. Somehow, the prep work got done. When installing the hardwood, roofing paper was first laid and stapled down (trust me, we did not go overboard on the motherf*&%$#@ staples like the previous owners). Once that was securely in place, the slats of wood could be laid, popped into place, and nailed down with a rented gun. My gopher job during the process was to open boxes, remove slats, and lay them down so the real experts could pop them into place (win). And avoid splinters (fail). I often felt as though the whole operation was rather like delivering a baby. Workers would scurry in and out of rooms, back and forth constantly, between laying the flooring and cutting the pieces. When things really got going everyone was very focused and working at breakneck speed. It just felt like we were about to produce a miracle. Oh, hey, look:


And the result was what can only be called beautifigloriousness.


Here is the kitchen with the new flooring. In the very back you can just make out my very own little light yellow craft room. We installed the hardwood flooring throughout the entire downstairs except for the master bath and attached master closet, weency half bath that is situated down this hallway, and just under where the washer and dryer will be located (all of which we will tile). The wood doesn't really look as it appears in the pictures. It is extremely dusty, but if you look closely you can make out a tiny clean patch in the middle. I think some serious swiffering is on task for this evening.


You can tell how dusty the entire ordeal was by the spots on my camera lens. This is our living room with our green accent wall and delicious floor.


And remember in this post where I said we got new French doors to replace the sliding glass one? Yeah, well here they are! It turns out the original sliding glass doors weren't wrapped properly (I'm shocked. I'll take a large cup of cynicality. Heavy on the sarcasm.). Therefore, the frame and surrounding wood flooring was pretty much rotted out and all had to be replaced. At least now it's fresh and new and non-moldy and we won't fall through the floor to our death.


And that carpeting that was installed...forever ago? Here you go! Mmmm...mushroom!


This is me trying to be clever. I'm in Husband's office (green) looking through the doorway past the stairwell (tan) into the guest bedroom (red). So you can see how well the carpeting works with all of the colors that we had already painted. *Pats self on the back*


So there you have it. La Maison Pourpre. We are still praying to the renovation gods to move in within a month or two, but we will see how the tile, cabinet, and appliance installation goes. Other than that, it's all downhill from here! We hope you will come visit us soon!