Home Renovations!

Alright, so in an attempt to get back on track, I'm going to make this the first of a series of posts that are going to be way out of chronological order. However, in our defense, we've had so much insanity swirling about these past few months that, if not for the incremental fashion in which our camera stores the photos we take, we might well not remember the proper sequence of the events that have transpired!

Over the Memorial Day weekend - starting the Thursday before it, actually - we installed laminate flooring throughout the main floor areas of our home. The primary motivation for this was preparing our home for the start of Laura's daycare services; it seemed like hardwood flooring would be more damage-resistant than carpeting. Besides, the areas in which we had lineoleum, it was starting to peel away, and the carpet (as we really discovered upon it's removal) was getting beat down and gross as all hell in many places.

So, Laura's brother and mom came up that Thursday morning and got the installation under way. The week prior to this, and the few days leading up to it, we'd been ripping up carpet, packing furniture into the boys' bedroom and toy room, and any other possible storage location we had available. The boys took to sleeping on their bed mattresses on our bedroom floor during this time, and we had to institute a "socks-or-flops at all times" rule once we'd stripped the floors down to the concrete slab. It was a great adventure, and big fun to kinda rip up our home! Laura's younger brother joined the fray Thursday evening, and I was able to take off work that Friday to help wrap up the installation. We are so grateful for those guys' help, as well as her mom's help (as she also took the boys back down to Jasper with her while we worked through the weekend), in getting this major task done in such a quick, yet thorough, fashion. Big thanks to those three!

Oh yeah, not only did we knock out the flooring, we painted our kitchen, our dining room, re-applied a fresh coat to our half-wall and the back wall that spans the kitchen and dining room, and we painted most of our trim work in the areas where the floor was changed. Did I mention that my brother and I got a fence started, as well? No pictures of its progress exist, unfortunately, but I'll try to snap some of the finished product and throw down a few lines about that experience, as well.
In the interim, here are some pictures we took of the before and after look of our house through the floor transformation. Enjoy!

(K)