Monday, July 6, 2009

Living Room

BEFORE:
AFTER: We put in these beautiful new hardwood floors.
We used pre-finished, hand scraped, solid wood flooring. We bought it from Lumber Liquidators. They were the best price here in Idaho Falls.
We rented a nail gun for installing hardwood flooring and we have our air compressor. 
**Important - Buy your wood ahead of time and let it sit inside your house in the boxes. Wood expands and shrinks depending on humidity and temperature. So you need to let it sit in the environment for about a week prior to installing otherwise after you install it it can buckled if the wood swells or there can be gaps if the wood shrinks.
BEFORE:
AFTER: 
 The WORST PART!!! So yeah, we did this ourselves and when I say "we" I mean my husband while I feed him and keep the kids out of the way and hand him a tool once in a while. 
So this project should have been about 3-4 days but on day 2 Matthew was throwing up from the flu. And the sickie stayed sick for the next 3 days. Renting that nail gun cost $20 less than buying a new one for ourselves. Oh well, it was still cheaper than paying someone else.
We chose pre-finished wood this time. Our last two houses had hardwood that we refinished ourselves. (click here to see one of those projects)
Refinishing wood means you need to have about 7-12 days of not being able live in that space at all. So the first reason we used pre-finished is for convenience because the wood was going in the living room, kitchen, and hallway. There was no way to live in this house without stepping on the wood. 2nd reason is because Matthew wanted hand scraped, which you cannot refinish yourself. 3rd reason is because the sealant is extremely higher quality and longer lasting than you can do yourself.

The picture above is the tile we installed at all the entrances.

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