Showing posts with label flooring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flooring. Show all posts
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Monday, March 01, 2010
exciting things afoot
No pun intended in the title, but guess what's sitting in my dining room right now?
This:
Hardwood flooring, baby! A lot's been going on here lately, and I've been really, really bad at keeping up. I'm getting some pictures uploaded and some posts written up right now, but I had to share this immediately. These boxes - and another pile the same size in the office, and a smaller one in the living room - were delivered this morning by our flooring guys. Installation starts Thursday morning. I snuck a sample out of one of the boxes so that you could all get a glimpse of the flooring we chose:
It's prefinished hardwood, three-quarter inch red oak in a color called 'gunstock'. Don tells me it's called that because it is in fact the color used for those wood bits on guns (clearly I am out of my depth in this discussion).
Things we looked for when we were choosing wood and color:
-Hardness. Not only am I the clumsiest person on earth, we plan on having children and dogs both in this house, so the floors have to stand up well. Don originally wanted pine, which is what his parents have, but for this quality oak was the way to go for us (we never had any interest in any of the exotic hardwoods, for what it's worth - they're not suited to the house or the neighborhood).
-Grain. We both wanted a strong grain - we saw a lot of wood with only a very light grain pattern, and it frustrated us because we want our wood to scream "Hey! I'm wood!" and not look like laminate.
-Brown but not red. I can't tell you how many times I've pointed at a wood sample and Don has wrinkled his nose and shaken his head, saying "Too red!" I love cherry wood and mahogany tones but I can see his point. The floors should be relatively neutral and go with whatever we choose to accent them with, and red tones don't always go with everything (ask my mother the redhead). If you ask me, the wood we wound up with still has a little hint of red (as you can see in the poorly-lit picture above), but it's brown enough to suit him finally and I love it, so we're happy.
-Prefinished. We're living here and don't plan on moving out - there's no way we'd be able to deal with having the floors finished here. There is nothing anybody could say to me that would outweigh the huge pro of ease of installation with prefinished wood. And the finish is guaranteed for far longer than we plan to be in this house - if the next owner wants to refinish them, fine.
A few other things swayed our decision on which supplier/installer to use, like warranty, wood grade, and of course price, but they weren't things that we went into the process determined about.
I'm looking forward to seeing this stuff installed! The plan is to complete the downstairs, stairs, and landing on Thursday and Friday, then have us move our office downstairs. That'll empty out two of the three upstairs bedrooms, which can then have their floors installed on Monday, whereupon we'll move our bedroom into one of them and the master suite will be finished off. Given our scheduling luck, I make no promises that it will actually happen that way, but that's the plan!
This:
Hardwood flooring, baby! A lot's been going on here lately, and I've been really, really bad at keeping up. I'm getting some pictures uploaded and some posts written up right now, but I had to share this immediately. These boxes - and another pile the same size in the office, and a smaller one in the living room - were delivered this morning by our flooring guys. Installation starts Thursday morning. I snuck a sample out of one of the boxes so that you could all get a glimpse of the flooring we chose:
It's prefinished hardwood, three-quarter inch red oak in a color called 'gunstock'. Don tells me it's called that because it is in fact the color used for those wood bits on guns (clearly I am out of my depth in this discussion).
Things we looked for when we were choosing wood and color:
-Hardness. Not only am I the clumsiest person on earth, we plan on having children and dogs both in this house, so the floors have to stand up well. Don originally wanted pine, which is what his parents have, but for this quality oak was the way to go for us (we never had any interest in any of the exotic hardwoods, for what it's worth - they're not suited to the house or the neighborhood).
-Grain. We both wanted a strong grain - we saw a lot of wood with only a very light grain pattern, and it frustrated us because we want our wood to scream "Hey! I'm wood!" and not look like laminate.
-Brown but not red. I can't tell you how many times I've pointed at a wood sample and Don has wrinkled his nose and shaken his head, saying "Too red!" I love cherry wood and mahogany tones but I can see his point. The floors should be relatively neutral and go with whatever we choose to accent them with, and red tones don't always go with everything (ask my mother the redhead). If you ask me, the wood we wound up with still has a little hint of red (as you can see in the poorly-lit picture above), but it's brown enough to suit him finally and I love it, so we're happy.
-Prefinished. We're living here and don't plan on moving out - there's no way we'd be able to deal with having the floors finished here. There is nothing anybody could say to me that would outweigh the huge pro of ease of installation with prefinished wood. And the finish is guaranteed for far longer than we plan to be in this house - if the next owner wants to refinish them, fine.
A few other things swayed our decision on which supplier/installer to use, like warranty, wood grade, and of course price, but they weren't things that we went into the process determined about.
I'm looking forward to seeing this stuff installed! The plan is to complete the downstairs, stairs, and landing on Thursday and Friday, then have us move our office downstairs. That'll empty out two of the three upstairs bedrooms, which can then have their floors installed on Monday, whereupon we'll move our bedroom into one of them and the master suite will be finished off. Given our scheduling luck, I make no promises that it will actually happen that way, but that's the plan!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
not managerial material
Here's something I didn't think I'd be saying several months ago: I'll be really glad to get back to doing things ourselves.
Really. After the months (years) of DIY work to do the demolition, the subfloors, and the framing (et al), I was more than ready to have some contractors come in and work. But last night I handed the drywaller the last two hundred dollars of his fee and waved him out the door with sheer glee. I'm so tired of dealing with other people! Scheduling them, supervising them, PAYING them, dealing with fallout when they don't show up, pointing out their mistakes, getting them to FIX their mistakes, getting them to show up at all... I'm so over it.
We have just one more contractor to decide on and deal with: hardwood flooring. We have two estimates in, and two to go - last week's snowstorm derailed us a bit, with two appointments rescheduled and us stuck at home for a full week. Fortunately - and I don't mind a bit of a plug here - we live in Baltimore County, not the city, and our snow removal was beyond excellent. Our street was plowed early on for both snowstorms - the only thing stopping us from getting out was our own effort in shoveling the driveway. And the taxes are lower in the county, too. I'm just saying.
Anyway, we've got appointments today and tomorrow with hardwood flooring estimators, and we're hoping to make a decision over the weekend and get started as soon as possible. Once the flooring's in, we'll finally be able to live in most of the house again, which will be a new and different thing. There's a comfy couch sitting in a box in my in-laws' basement, waiting for me to take it out and sit on it. I'm very excited by the prospect.
Really. After the months (years) of DIY work to do the demolition, the subfloors, and the framing (et al), I was more than ready to have some contractors come in and work. But last night I handed the drywaller the last two hundred dollars of his fee and waved him out the door with sheer glee. I'm so tired of dealing with other people! Scheduling them, supervising them, PAYING them, dealing with fallout when they don't show up, pointing out their mistakes, getting them to FIX their mistakes, getting them to show up at all... I'm so over it.
We have just one more contractor to decide on and deal with: hardwood flooring. We have two estimates in, and two to go - last week's snowstorm derailed us a bit, with two appointments rescheduled and us stuck at home for a full week. Fortunately - and I don't mind a bit of a plug here - we live in Baltimore County, not the city, and our snow removal was beyond excellent. Our street was plowed early on for both snowstorms - the only thing stopping us from getting out was our own effort in shoveling the driveway. And the taxes are lower in the county, too. I'm just saying.
Anyway, we've got appointments today and tomorrow with hardwood flooring estimators, and we're hoping to make a decision over the weekend and get started as soon as possible. Once the flooring's in, we'll finally be able to live in most of the house again, which will be a new and different thing. There's a comfy couch sitting in a box in my in-laws' basement, waiting for me to take it out and sit on it. I'm very excited by the prospect.
Monday, June 04, 2007
this post is more than one sentence long
I suppose you might actually like to know what's going on around here, aside from my various wittily-captioned photos and LOLcat obsession. The big news is that the first floor subfloor is officially done, and we're moving on to wiring. Or rather, we thought we were moving on to wiring.
We went out and bought some good books on wiring and electrical work (yes, Dad, including one that is about the NEC code). Don spent most of Saturday reading and then making an electrical plan (which he says I can post once he has redone it so it doesn't look like our house is inside a funhouse mirror). You may recall that last weekend, he and his dad cleaned out the basement and did the first of the new wiring, putting in far more lights than anyone actually needs in a basement (at Don's insistence). Once that was done, we could really plan out how we wanted the electrical to work in the first floor. It's really nice to be able to consider things like where we want our Christmas tree to go, and be able to make sure that there's a plug there for the lights. So we made our plan, and Don started placing boxes for electrical outlets in preparation for wiring.
The problem? Well, we realized that we can't actually wire until the HVAC and window contractors have come through, as they'll be changing our spaces. And since we have yet to be able to get hold of either the HVAC guy or the window company (WHY won't anyone call us back?), we are at an impasse. Frustrating, but it gives us some time to recover from the massive construction effort (and for me to get over the bout of poison ivy which, despite everyone's best intentions, I've managed to contract) and to start clearing out the clutter upstairs in preparation for the move downstairs once all this is over with.
There's a positive side to everything. But I would really like to have air conditioning soon.
We went out and bought some good books on wiring and electrical work (yes, Dad, including one that is about the NEC code). Don spent most of Saturday reading and then making an electrical plan (which he says I can post once he has redone it so it doesn't look like our house is inside a funhouse mirror). You may recall that last weekend, he and his dad cleaned out the basement and did the first of the new wiring, putting in far more lights than anyone actually needs in a basement (at Don's insistence). Once that was done, we could really plan out how we wanted the electrical to work in the first floor. It's really nice to be able to consider things like where we want our Christmas tree to go, and be able to make sure that there's a plug there for the lights. So we made our plan, and Don started placing boxes for electrical outlets in preparation for wiring.
The problem? Well, we realized that we can't actually wire until the HVAC and window contractors have come through, as they'll be changing our spaces. And since we have yet to be able to get hold of either the HVAC guy or the window company (WHY won't anyone call us back?), we are at an impasse. Frustrating, but it gives us some time to recover from the massive construction effort (and for me to get over the bout of poison ivy which, despite everyone's best intentions, I've managed to contract) and to start clearing out the clutter upstairs in preparation for the move downstairs once all this is over with.
There's a positive side to everything. But I would really like to have air conditioning soon.
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