When Chris and I walked through what would become our home, the very first time, we told each other we would have to replace the carpet as soon as possible.  That was August, 2004.  Nearly eight years later we finally did just that – in our bedroom!  (We are hopeful we will do the boys bedrooms this summer.)  Because Conner, Chase and Chris all got a chance to work with Chuck last summer installing wood floors we felt like we could do all the labor ourselves.  That was really the only way we would be able to afford to do this!  We picked out a dark, hand scraped wood and let it sit in the house for about ten days to acclimate to the climate (humidity) of the house.  During that time we were pulling up our carpet, prepping the concrete, repainting the walls and the baseboards and cutting under the door frames to allow for the extra height of the wood. 

The other thing we decided along the way was to redo our closets.  The house came with some built-in units that we found to be a real waste of space and just a place for lots of dust to accumulate.  We spent a lot of time measuring and researching ideas and looking through the IKEA website.  My Mom and I then took a trip to the IKEA in Orlando to pick up the pieces we selected.  For me, this was my very favorite part of the renovations – to now have a closet that I designed for myself to function in the way that works best for my stuff was a dream come true – I even decided to put in a chandelier to make sure it was extra girly!

Install day was February 4th, 2012!  We woke up prepared for a long, full day.  I pictured myself getting drinks and snacks and helping carry in wood and deciding which piece should go where.  Within about 15 minutes of getting back from the breakfast run to Chick-fil-A I was down on my hands and knees with a mallot in my hand smacking the heck out of wood planks and spreading glue and PUTTING IN WOOD FLOORS!  It was really awesome – for about 8 hours.  After that, I was literally on my belly, with tears rolling down my face, wondering how anyone survives labor camps!  It is a bit embarrassing to admit I was so dramatic about it, but it was extremely hard work!!  The icing on the cake (please be sure to recognize the sarcasm in that comment) was that once all the wood was in we looked around at the awful mess we had created with glue!  We spent the next three hours (until around 3:00 in the morning) cleaning glue up off the wood floors.

In the end it was SO TOTALLY worth it.  We had a family day that was full of hard work, but we created something awesome together.  We feel like the room and the closets are finally clean and organized and we know we will be happy walking on these floors for as long as we own this house. 

Here’s some photos of the project at various stages, start to finish.

Before!