August 22, 2009
Right now, we are in the middle of a partial remodel of our home here in Laguna Beach. We've been here five years now and lived with carpeting that we are not fond of. Late last year, Gabe, being the curious and inquisitive person that he is, did a little exploring and discovered that there are original red oak hardwood floors beneath!We talked about it and dreamed of tearing up the carpeting and refinishing the floors. We weren't certain that our landlord would go for it and who knew what kind of damage the floors would have, if any? So we kind of put it on the back burner and stayed busy with our lives.
About a month ago we got a surprise visit from the property manager in regards to a different matter and took the advantage of her being there by asking her if she'd be alright with us doing the floor project and if there was anything we needed to be aware of. To our utter delight, she gave us her full blessing! After all, it would be a home improvement for their property.
The floors were/are a little funky with some areas of water damage and TONS of paint and mud splatters all over the floors, but it didn't deter us. Since it is a rental, we weren't planning on making the floors perfect anyway so we planned to just remove the carpeting, pull up all the old staples, nails and carpet tack strips along the walls, do a quick sanding job and then put a layer of VOC-free oil finish on it. Oh, AND paint the nursery a 50's mint green color. We can get it done in about a week. Suuuuuure.
It is now into week 4 and half of our house is in the living room (Thanks to Mom and Charis Pratt for helping us move the office furniture and our way-too-much-stuff!). There is literally a maze to my corner of the room where my computer and desk is. We've been sleeping on our mattress on the floor in various rooms (including the entryway!), depending on what was being done. See, instead of just painting the nursery, we just had to paint our bedroom, the entryway, the hallway and the office, 'cause all the furniture is out and we might as well, you know?? I'm glad we did. Gabe and I were talking about how much it feels like we've moved into a new house and it feels MORE like a home than a rental now!
There were some areas on the floor that were patched with plywood that we were just going to leave alone and maybe paint over, but being the Maximizer that Gabe is, he decided that it would be better to replace those areas with new red oak hardwood slats (that we had to special order). I am so lucky to have this man as my husband. Where I would cut corners, he would not and I'm very glad for it. We also enlisted the help of Gabe's Dad, Grandpa Dennis, who was kind enough to fly all the way down from north of San Francisco for a few days and also my cousin Devin's husband, Steve. Thank you both for your help! It looks amazing! Right now Gabe is in there with the stand-up sander doing the initial phase of sanding and the floors are SO beautiful.
Next up - after doing all the sanding, we will apply just one coat of the finish, let it dry, paint one last room and then put baseboards in (there were really none to begin with). THEN we can finally move half of our house back in.
After that we are going to tear up the last bit of carpeting in one of the bathrooms and put in beautiful green 3/4" round penny tiles (since there were no hardwood floors in there) that kind of match the 50's style of the existing tiles on the walls. It's going to look GORGEOUS! So yes, we are nesting BIG time and we're so excited to see the end result!
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