The Floor Saga...Completed

So I was overly ambitious with the desire to post AS we were going on the house projects.  As it turns out, 12-14 hour days of manual labor on a house will make you too tired by the end of the day to sit at your computer and blog about it.

However, now that we're "settled" and simply working on the "little things" (you know - like planning a full backyard makeover.......) I have time to go back and tell the now-funny horror stories of some of the big projects of this house journey that we've been on.  And I figured, since I last left you with peeling up carpet and black gunk stuck to the floor, I figured I should first finish the floor saga for your enjoyment.

So after my wonderful husband ripped out the carpet (it was musty and I have really bad allergies to it so I couldn't even be in the house while he did this...), we started to attack the floors.  One of the great things about a house from the 40's/50's is that it comes with hardwood floors.  The terrible thing about the house having "lived through" the 60's/70's/80's is that it had carpet OVER the hardwoods - the whole time.  Carpet padding, and years of wear meant a mess to clean up...and try to clean it we did.

We bought sand paper and Goof Off and hardwood cleaner and a number of other products to try to get the black gunk off the floors. We spent a few hours on our hands and knees scraping and scrubbing and all that we could.

Unfortunately, we made the call that it was too far gone for what we had.  We would need to sand down and refinish the floors and we didn't want to spend the time or money required to accomplish such things.  We had to be out of our apartment officially and were down to a mere 2 days to finish the floors...so we went with the next best thing: laminate!

Laminate is do-able on your own and there are some seriously affordable options out there...so off we went, for another trip to Lowes!

We picked out a floor that went with the color of the hardwoods (as they're still in the bedrooms off the hallway - where there wasn't carpet) but that didn't try to be "matchy-matchy."  Then, we bought our flooring and supplies and headed home.

First, you have to roll out the foam underlay:

Tape down the seams and staple so it doesn't move around...then you're ready to start laying floor! 

Snap-together laminate is the greatest thing ever created!!

Stagger your joints, cut around vents and other obstacles, make sure to get nice tight fits with the flooring hammer. 

The hallway proved to be the most difficult part:

A vent, a column, edges that meet linoleum, doorways...and I think you can tell from this picture...the hallway actually TAPERS toward the end!  Who designs a hallway like this????

But we did it!  And we spray painted the vent covers with a color matching mottled spray paint.  They just don't make steel grates like that anymore and with it in the middle of the hall, you need a nice sturdy grate so it can be stepped on. 

Overall, it creates a great look - and literally tooks us like a day and a half.  And we only stopped when we did because it was late and saws are loud....we didn't want to disturb our neighbors.  I do think the hallway itself took almost as long as the whole living room....

Coming up next?  We'll check out my office makeover :) 

Check back soon!