i love packing and moving said no one ever

There is nothing like a good move to make you want to throw away every single earthly possession you own just so you never have to move it again. WOW. I am officially 115 years old and my back is broken. Here I am carrying a sack of body aches and muscle strains that will likely stay with me all week. 

Jack and I had quite a rager on Friday night that ended with a 20 minute debate of should we just sleep on the hardwood floor or was it worth the energy to peel ourselves off the floor and make the 1.5 mile trek over to our temporary apartment. 

Tonight, I plan on sleeping as soundly as these guys do 23.5 hours per day.

On a positive note, the floors are finished and they look great! For once, I am not second guessing myself and having a giant case of self doubt. I am 100% happy with the clear finish. Everyone can rest easy. I know you have all been worried about the anxiety I was having. 

Sorry for only posting pictures of floors lately, I promise this has not turned into a blog only about hardwood floors. This is just the only progress I know to report of currently, and I am too tired to think of anything clever. Excuses excuses. 

On other positive notes, the pack rat is all packed up and schedule to be picked up on Monday. ALL of the appliances are in and should be installed this week. Does this mean what I think it means??  Am I seeing a light?? What will I do with my free time?? 

And to all of you kind, dear souls who offered to help this weekend, let's be honest. 

You're welcome. 

clear winner

The first coat of clear polyurethane went down on Monday, and I must say I am quite the Pleasant Pollyanna so far. And here I was thinking I would be pining away (pun intended) the loss of my dark floors. It is COMPLETELY different from what they looked like before, but I think the floors are probably happier to be back a little closer to their roots. They probably feel like Rachel McAdams in that they have been dyed so many times they didn't even know what their natural color was. I think the clear really was the clear winner. Here they are after one coat:

My fig trees have taken up residence on an outside porch during the floor project. If those suckers die, this Pollyanna is going to be quite the opposite of pleasant. I am pretty sure I have managed to keep one of them alive longer than my youngest little son, Alfred. Needless to say when I saw a SQUIRREL wreaking havoc to one of my dearest fiddle leafs, it is making me think it may be time to reconsider my stance on squirrel hunting. What a jackass. 

Of course there are plenty of spots full of what we like to refer to as "character" (i.e., the giant square cutout in the hallway above where the furnace used to be), but it wouldn't fit with this house if they were perfect. So far I am pretty pleased, and it is not everyday that I get to say that. At this point, (I hope you are sitting down), it looks like all is ON SCHEDULE, and we should be moving back in this weekend. Ohhhh, don't everyone volunteer to help all at once. 

a quick ear stain about floor stain

Picking out a floor stain can be quite the tedious process. You don't want to go too dark, you don't want to go too light, you don't want it to be too red, blah blah blah. I have had stain on the brain for quite some time now. I am kind of at that trippy place in life where if you say a word a few times too many that it gets to the point where it sounds so weird it can't possibly be a real word. Stain. stain. stain. Tell me that doesn't sound crazy to you too. I promise I have not been huffing polyurethane. Moving on. That was weird. 

I am having a dilemma picking out a stain. Here is a quick reminder of what the floors used to look like:

And a quick update on the sanding progress:

It's hard to believe after just a day of sanding, what once looked like this...

Now looks like this...

And another before:

And another after:

Initially I was really worried about this part ever getting back to normal...

Now the boards that had to be replaced don't look as out of place as they did earlier...

And I was really sad to think about losing my white floor, that I HAND painted all by myself, but the maintenance is killer. I did it almost 4 years ago, and it was probably time to do it again. The scuffs and scratches were getting a little OOC. 

White floor no more:

You probably think I am a lunatic for ever painting the floor in the first place, but I assure you I am not. Some of you (more like none) might remember from here the floor was covered in a lovely puke green colored carpet, and underneath there was yet another charming shade of blue paint on the floors (and walls). OMG I am not kidding. I just found an old picture and I have to just share it. AHHH. Point proven. I was not crazy for painting the floors white.

And now to my actual dilemma. Floor stain decisions...

I am a lover of dark floors. Realllly dark floors. And our floors prior to sanding were already really dark. I know there is more upkeep involved with dark floors. And yes, we have dogs. I know the downsides, but you know I like to be hardheaded. I always thought I would end up staining the floors really dark again. Here are some stain options:

Clockwise from top: Early American, Mahogany, Clear

Top: Clear, Bottom: Mahogany 

Can you believe that is just a clear stain? Crazy, right? Knowing how much I love to pine and toil in agony over decisions like this, you would think I would have put down about 15 more colors. Thank God I didn't have access to more colors because clearly I would have. And I would have mixed and diluted and given myself about a million too many options to chose from. 

While the crazy person in me really wants to lean towards the darkest stain, there is some bit of sanity sneaking in that is telling me to let the natural beauty of the floors speak for themselves. I don't have to do the speaking for everyone. 

Here is another picture of particularly low quality, but I was trying to capture a bit of what the old stain looked like (in the far left corner) next to what the floors will look like with just the clear stain. I think the clear stain might be the clear winner. Yes, I get cheesier by the day. 

It is such a drastic change from what the floors were like before, but I think it is the right decision. Au naturale is always in style, right?  Anyone have any opinions they are brave enough to share?

floored

The floors in our house have always been one of my favorite features, despite the charming angles at which they slope and despite the fact that my dogs are determined to add lots of "character" to them. They are old, wide heartpine floors that I love more and more the longer I live in this house.

According to my iPhone, I guess I don't value my floors as much as I thought because I have zero pictures focusing on just the floors. This was the only photo I could find that shows more than one or two boards peeking out from under a rug. Great lighting, I know.

Since we opened the wall in the kitchen, our contractor wanted to level out the floors as much as possible so it would look better not be extremely hazardous for anyone who walks in our house. The flooring at the end of our hallway has the most severe slope because it was once an exterior porch. To accomplish that, he had to rip up the existing flooring. As if that isn't enough, then he had to put in new subfloor and jack it up to match the other flooring. Oh, and replace the old with new flooring. I was hesitant about this, but the flooring in the back hallway never really was a perfect match with the rest of the original heartpine flooring throughout the house.  It now looks like this. Terrifying.

But, our heartpine flooring has arrived and it looks amazing.

I am so excited about these floors. Dork alert. They came from a company near Pittsboro, NC that uses reclaimed boards from mills, train stations, barns, etc. since the heartpine trees are no longer around. The reclaiming process is actually pretty interesting and you can read more about it here.   

They had to put a few boards down so they could put in the cabinets this week (major excitement!) and I am having a hard time envisioning how they are going to match up with the other ancient floor boards. Gotta have faith. 

Once we finish the kitchen and the back bar, we are refinishing all of the hardwoods in the house. This is something we probably should have done when we first moved in, but we didn't quite have the patience to start another project or wait another second before moving. Now all of the hardwood downstairs will be 7/8" and will be more consistent throughout. I am so excited to see how this turns out. 

I may turn into that person who makes everyone take off their shoes when people come over. Please no. But, I promise to at least post more before & after photos when there is actual progress to report. I know, I know. It's a total cliffhanger. Sorry about that boys and girls.