yes we can.

yeah, so, the hubs and i have decided to put down hardwood floors. are we crazy, you ask? why yes, yes we are.

we, to this point, have had what came in the house, which were parquet floors. pretty, but we really, really wanted nice, long smooth oak hardwood floors and not the square look that parquet gives.

we got several estimates on the floors and the installation and were flabbergasted by the costs to have someone come out and put them down.

jeff called me one day from work...conversation goes as follows:

J: "we're doing it. we are going to put down the floors."

L: "um, we are not professionals. why do you think we can do this?"

J: "i've been watching videos on youtube of how to install hardwood floors and there's nothing to it. we're doing it ourselves."

L: "so watching youtube makes us experts, huh?"

J: "yes. we can do it."

so, apparently we are in following with our new president's "theme" for 2009 because we decided YES WE CAN.

and we did!

we got a little overwhelmed at first trying to get the first row going because if the first row is not completely 100% straight, it screws up the rest of the room. but now that we've gotten going, it really isn't that bad. the worst part is the toll that it is taking on me physically. i can hardly touch my knees because they're so sore. i have knee pads, but they only help so much. and my poor, poor hands are a wreck. but you know what? as much as i doubted our abilities in the beginning, we have done a dang good job and we'll know that everytime we walk across those floors that we did it all by ourselves.

so today is not a "martha moment" post---it's more like a "bob vila moment." :-)

happy weekend!

here are some pics of the progress:

day 1, about 4:30 p.m. floor is cleared of old floor, subfloor is ready


day 1, about 6:00 p.m., all of the rosin paper is stapled down and we have finally got the boards going.

jeff the handyman on day 1...

end of day 1, about 11:00 p.m.
end of day 2, only worked on it from about 7:30-10 p.m. not bad!