Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

In celebration of your birthday (number kept secret to conceal the innocent)...we are working on the flooring!!!!!

Love you Dad!! Hope you have a GREAT B-Day!!

Lets Put Down Some Floor!

Hello Floor Nailer...how you have become our friend...
You have helped us accomplish this...

and this...

and this...

And finally, this is our workspace...it is ever changing, yet always holds the essentials, caffeine, communication, nails, poker chips, favorite wood planks ("that we can't nail down yet")...

Lets Do Some Nailing

The time has FINALLY arrived to nail some flooring! We couldn't be more excited! To celebrate, Kevin and Zach spend the day nailing down planks, while Corie and I did some very important shopping...

Here is what we started with...we brought wood into the house to acclimate...

Zach and I "racked out" much of the flooring, so that it would be easy for him and Kevin to install.

At the end of the first day, we had a new hallway!!!!

Finishing Touches (On the Sub Floor :) )

So...we finally finished the plywood, and what a feeling that was...


Here we are showing off our closet work...

Next...we installed tar paper...I like to shorten the name to "tarp". This was the easiest and perhaps our favorite step of the process thus far. We quickly rolled out the tar paper (in an evening), so that when we laid the new wood floors, we would have little to NO squeaking...
So...I think we are finally ready for some flooring!!!

The Many Steps to Prepare

We live in Phoenix, and, as so many others in this area, we have a concrete slab. We soon found out how inconvenient this would prove to be. Since we are putting down solid wood floors, we need a wood sub floor to nail our "new" wood floors too...

This starts by applying a black tar substance (for a moisture barrier) ...

After all the black tar is down, we rolled out a plastic sheet, additional moisture protection!

Now, with the black tar and plastic down, we are ready for some plywood...

Here is where the project gets interesting...to attach the plywood to our concrete slab, we have to use a "powder actuated nail gun". We bought a lovely 27 caliber gun on Craigslist, and it did a beautiful job in our back two rooms, hall, den and so on and so on.... Here's Zach and I modeling with "the gun"...

And, not quite as exciting, but just as important, Zach modeling with the nails...

The Before

We started with basic, builder's grade beige carpeting. It was in OK condition, nothing too exciting, but definitely something we were comfortable living with. We pulled it up Sunday, January 24th, and the project officially moved "indoors".

Here is a view of the carpet down the hall...

After removing all of the carpet, we went back to trusty old Craigslist. We were able to sell the carpet and padding, and, more importantly, save ourselves a trip to the dump. Overall, a success and bonus cash!!!

After the carpet was removed, we created the "quarantined area". In an effort to contain as much dust as possible, as we were living in the rest of the home, we put up lovely plastic sheeting to close off "the back wing" a.k.a the two spare bedrooms, 2nd bathroom, laundry room and den...

And our dining room quickly started to resemble a storage unit...

Cheap Labor

It takes a while to remove, load, and unload 5500 sq ft of wood. It takes a while to cut the nails off of 5500 sq ft of wood.

Thank GOODNESS for family our version of cheap labor. My mom helped us load and unload the wood for the mere price of margaritas and cold mexican beer. And, we put EVERYONE to work over Thanksgiving, we host one meal, most of which we didn't cook or prepare (thanks moms and grandmas!!!) and then couldn't get everyone in gloves and safety glasses fast enough.

I have a feeling Zach and I won't be asked to host another family holiday for a while...

We owe a HUGE THANK YOU to our parents, Nora, Lance and Renell, our siblings, Erin, Lee, Ari and Timothy, Grandma Janna, Grandpa Bob, Grandma Sandy and Joe!!

Thank you all - it wouldn't have gone NEAR as fast or been even close to as much FUN without you!

(I wish had pictures, but sadly, I do not...trust me, they all worked, I promise.)

Welcome to the Wood

While perusing Craigslist, Kevin found a dance studio wanting to sell their hardwood floor, and immediately called Zach. It may be because we were at Four Peaks, drinking our second pitcher of beer, it may be because we were completely ignorant regarding what this was going to entail, there is a VERY minimal chance it is because we had great foresight and knew what a smart investment this would be (fingers still crossed), for whatever reason, in less than 24 hours, we were the proud owners of 5500 sq. ft. of flooring, still attached at the dance studio...

With a couple of crow bars and MANY man hours, we removed each and every board and loaded them into the back of pickups and trailers until all 5500 sq ft was piled into our three garage bays...where it sat...for months...waiting for us to cut each and every nail...

The Beginning

In July 2009, Zach and I bought our 1st home! We couldn't have been more excited...

We moved in and couldn't get in the pool fast enough...

With the help of our parents, we quickly made our new house a home. It took some scrubbing and painting, but quickly, we settled in.

Life was good, until September...when Kevin called....

Welcome!

Hello Everyone!

Here is a look at our CRAZY project - replacing all of our floors with reclaimed hardwood! Its been quite the adventure - and, since we know you wish you could be here helping, we thought we'd give you picture updates along the way...enjoy.... :)