Setbacks, Delays and a Little Progress

So we were sooo excited to put in our new floors this weekend but unfortunately it didn't happen for two reasons.

First of all we ended up deciding to go with bamboo flooring for the whole house, after doing some research we decided this was the best compromise between cost, durability and good looks and we are still really happy we decided to go with the bamboo. We had a tough time deciding this though and we waffled on what kind of floors to get right up until the last minute so we weren't able to plan for the installation as much as we would have liked. The thing about bamboo is that it is a fiber and can expand and contract quite a bit depending on the climate it is in. because of this you have to leave a little room around the edges of your room when laying your bamboo floors so that they can grow if they need to. It is also recommended that the flooring sits in the room it will eventually live in for about 3 days before you install it so that it can acclimate to the space (this is supposed to cut down on the amount that it will swell). Well, darn... so we can't put the bamboo in for another 3 days, which basically means we can't put it in until next weekend since we have no time during the week.

The second snag we hit was that our sub floors are crazy. When we first pulled up the carpet we discovered that someone had put down a layer of particle board on top of the plywood that makes up the main sub floor. God knows why, the people who built this house were insane. So as it turns out you can't install bamboo flooring over particle board, ugh! So the poor men, (Eric, Don, My Dad and our friend Adam) spent the whole weekend pulling up all the particle board in the living area. Luckily the bamboo we bought is exactly the same thickness as the particle board so when it goes down the floor will be the same height. It actually works out well too because it gave us a chance to reinforce a lot of the squeaky areas on the floor so it is all for the best but it's frustrating to have the delay when we were so excited.


We did make some progress this weekend however (other than pulling up particle board of course). We painted the two remaining bedrooms so now all that is left to paint is the bathrooms, yay! I'll be excited to check painting off my list, I'm getting kind of sick of it to be honest :-)

So here are some pictures from this weekend just so that Ya'll can see what's going on with the house now:

Our new flooring neatly stacked in boxes and getting acclimated to the space

This is what the floor we chose looks like, we think it will really make the living room and dining room sparkle

Boys tearing up the particle board on top of our sub floors

Guest bedroom all finished being painted, we choose a lovely light gray for this room

Guest bedroom again

Master bedroom-painting finished. The dark gray really modernized this room.

I have to give a great big shout out to Mom, Dad, Logan, Don, Jody, Adam and Joanna for all their help this weekend. We have awesome friends and family! We love you guys! Also an extra special thank you to my parents for cooking everyone an amazing dinner on Saturday night. We had an awesome time drinking wine and just hanging out with everyone after a hard day of work. Looking forward to living in the house and hosting dinners of our own to repay the favor :-)