the wood floor

It's official. We have a wood floor in our kitchen, and I really, really like it. So now you'll be bombarded with pictures.

Just to remind/inform you, we went from this when we bought the home:


To this:


And now this:


Again, we started with this:

Changed to this:


And now this:


Now you get to suffer through the installation pictures. Here the wood is climatizing (adjusting to the room temperature). In reality, 2/3 of the wood had been "climatizing" in our home for more than a year... that's how long we've been dragging our feet since we bought it from our friends (Thanks again Erica and Matt).

After ripping up the carpet in the kitchen, we discovered a nice, black pad that had been glued to the older linoleum underneath it. We had to scrape all that off, which took some extra time.


With the prep work all done, our good neighbor John came over to help us out. Here he's laying the first piece.

Drake and Graham were big helpers.

John's son Jackson helped out quite a bit too. They worked on the hallway the first night, which involved a lot of measuring and cutting. Shad did a little more the first night after our neighbors left to help speed things up the next night.

So the next night, they went at it again. John's other son Mitchell came to help too.

They covered a lot more area that night because there was very little cutting; mostly just laying it down.

Avery and Drake with Mitchell and Jackson.

Drake and Graham enjoying the new floor even before it was complete.

By the end of the second night, it was pretty close to being done.

The third night involved more measuring and cutting to finish up the last stretch by the back door. Here they're working on getting the last piece of wood laid.

How many guys does it take to lay the last piece of wood?


It only took about ten hours of labor to put it all in, even though it was broken up over three nights. Here's the finished product!


And where was the fridge, the dishwasher and the oven during these three days?


In the front room, of course, with the kitchen table.

Definitely easier having the kitchen and family room separate...

Did I mention there was a lot of cutting involved?

And just to remind you, and help you feel the difference...Before:

And after:

Before (after having just cleaned it too... gross):


And after (Ahhhhhh.....much better):

Much thanks to our friends who got us a great deal on the wood, and to our neighbor who helped us put it all in.


One of my favorite things about the wood floor (besides the fact that it looks much better than the old, nasty linoleum and stained carpet) is how easy it is to clean up after my kids, and how I no longer have to worry about the kids accidentally spilling stuff on the floor.

But what I love even more than the wood floor, is my sweet husband who spent the time and man power putting it in, and my darling kids who look great no matter what type of floor they're sitting on.