A true labor of love

Our floors.  Oh my our floors.  One of the first things we saw and was hard to "see past" when we first saw what would soon be our new home was the royal blue carpet, and the carpet in the kitchen.  Well, we decided to prioritize our DIY projects as there were several that needed our attention.  Flooring was NOT in the top 5, but it quickly raised to numero uno last month.

You see carpet in the kitchen with 6 chickens running around is just not a good idea.  So we decided to pull up the carpet and just live with what we thought was going to be the 1950's linoleum we found in one small corner.  As we started pulling up the carpet we noticed a small bit of hard wood, probably original to the 1910 house.  Well then we got ambitious and decided to tear up the 1980's pergo flooring, only because my amazing husband tried a few pieces and it came right up.  So we dug into THAT project only to get a third of the way done and realize they started using some pretty intense glue at that point, glue that was obviously some kind of "hyper-breed" that when left alone for a few decades bonds like cement in an effort to keep everyone in the 1980's era of home decor.  Well, my husband not to be defeated by said "hyper-breed glue" decided that he would cut the remaining floor out.

And so what started as a "lets just see what we have under this nasty carpet" moment, ended with a blow torch, hack saw, and 2 emergency runs to the ER of DIY-ing (The Home Depot)  We now have beautiful floors that are very anti-1980's and I could not be happier.  Moral of this story...NEVER.  and I mean NEVER.  EVER. Let anyone tell you the 1980's were great!!  I have blisters to prove it, and so do my husband and chickens.

I believe the following can give a bit more insight into the world of "the Bennets flooring adventure".

We had HIGH HOPES at this moment...

And then they were quickly dashed.

CN5 trying his best to look like he is helping and NOT getting into

 Daddy's tools that he was told not too.

One, gorgeous, and I mean GORGEOUS four by four area of hard wood flooring, if THIS had been all over the house I would have been elated, but alas, there have been too many additions onto this house and unfortunately one of them happened in the 1980's.

CN6 not too sure of the new floor.

The finished project, without the mammoth island, we decided it was just too big for the space.

Ah yes, what a labor it was, but one that was completely worth it in the end.  My husband would like to claim that we are done DIYing for a LONG time but alas, its onto the next big project, the #1 on our DIY bucket list...the basement.