New Floor

We came back from vacation to a mess in the house. While we were gone we had hardwood floors installed upstairs and the stairs. The house is now 8 years old and the white carpet was getting stained. We went back to the place we had do our livingroom and studio floors last year.. Floors of Distinction. They have been awesome. This fall I just emailed them what we wanted to do this year and they took care of it. Our designer Christina was at the house for a family session and took all the measurements then. She was so good about suggesting design ideas too. She was the one that suggested making the treads on the stairs out of natural oak and the risers out of the Brazillian Cherry. Which we love because it helps tie the downstairs with the upstairs. The cherry will darken in about six months. You can see in the picture above how much the livingroom cherry has darkened in the last year.

We were worried about the stairs being slippery and we expressed this concern Christina. The installer, Richard, said he found a new poly that was water based and left a slight texture. So slipperiness hasn't been a problem. I can't even slip on it with my socks.

It was great to have the work done while we were on vacation. I'm glad we didn't have to live through the mess while it was being done. Darin was thankful he didn't have to do it! They had some problems on the stairs because of structural and leveling issues.. another good reason we were glad Darin didn't do it.. he would have been at it for months!

By Sunday night we got all the furniture back upstairs and the mess cleaned up. Even tho they cut the wood outside there was still dust everywhere from the carpet removal. Once we got all the furniture back tho we are having problems with furniture placement in our bedroom. The TV has always been in the corner, but the cord for the cable TV was run under the carpet.. well we can't do that now. So Darin is researching flat screen TV's to mount on the wall in front of our bed. Happy Birthday to Darin!

Check out the pics so you can see new improvement. If you notice the cats were following me around as I was taking pictures... kind of like a 'where's waldo'! As I'm writing this the crew is here again finishing the shoe moulding around the trim. Here is a link to what the everything looked like before.