Thank the God's on Mt. Olympus..the floors are DONE!

I have the up most respect for MB almost entirely because he's not afraid to take things on and do them himself. Independence, I'm a big fan of it. Well we were now a weekend away from our big housewarming party and I was being kicked out..sort of. MB decided he was going to take it upon himself, with his entire Memorial Day weekend, to sand and finish ALL of the floors...by his lonesome. This seemed slightly mental to me, like his time line of putting a coat of sealer on the floor at about 1am I think he figured it. However, when MB gets an idea in his head you don't question it.

The problem with this whole endeavour was that our only bathroom (tiny and ugly as it is) sits smack dab at the back of the hall...past all of the floors that were being re done. 3 bedrooms, living room and hall in all. Therefore, I couldn't be there. MB can pee outside. Me? Not so much. So I was told to find a place to put myself. Find a little salvation. So on Wednesday of that week (admittedly a bit late), I got a epiphany: I would call for a girls weekend! Two of my life long best friends just HAPPENED, by the grace of unknown forces, to be available the entire Memorial Day weekend and, why yes, they would LOVE to go up to Maine! So here I was, getting all excited; we found a great hotel for a cheap price right in the center of where we wanted to be, I got to take a little mini vaca which it been quite some time since I'd done so AND, the peice de resistance..when I got back I would have FLOORS!!! Brand new (not really sanded) shiny floors! We chose to not stain them, but rather seal them and keep them light. As I hoped around giddily, poor MB looked like he was planning for a funeral.

We took a trip to our other home, Home Depot and picked out the gigantic can of sealer. MB was going to do 3 coats. Now, since we started painting and this had become my task, I'd grown rather fond of "the paint" girl at Home Depot. thin, very tom boyish with the most dazzling blue eyes, way too much black eyeliner and always a paint splattered bandanna in her hair. She is cool shit. No doubt about it. She knows her stuff, shes honest and "dude [she] LOVES color!" I'm thinking of adopting her..she looks like she could use a good home cooked meal at least. lol well she helped us out and we took the big step and purchased our paint color for the living room. Pale yellow. This was BY FAR the hardest color to pick. We had a rough idea of all the colors we wanted and we knew we wanted them all in the same family so they would flow together. There have GOT to about 78 shades of pale yellow..at Home Depot alone. I came home with a STACK of paint swatches one day and through processes of elimination we picked "Banana Cream", I'm sure partly for the name but it beat out quite a few others.

Anywho, so there I was setting out for a great weekend with my two girlfriends ( and it WAS a great weekend let me tell you! BEAUTIFUL weather, good company, just awesome) while poor MB took on the roughest task yet. Now the saving grace here was MB's dad CB to the rescue yet again. He held off a little vaca of his own (he made some silly excuse but I think he wanted to help MB) and came to help MB sand the floors. They rented a sander and an edger and one worked one and one worked the other. While I was laying on the beach, walking around eating ice cream and getting my nails done I did think often of poor MB and his task. I kept my phone conversations short because when he's grumpy he's not fond of chatting. Luckily his family entertained and fed him during a party but he still worked his skinny tail off.

Monday night I was sent to stay with MB's parents as the floors still had to dry but I was DYING to see the floors! I went to work the next day and practically bounced in my seat with anticipation. When I got...I couldn't believe it!!! They were so shiny! I almost cried. The moment I, for some reason, was holding everything against, was there. We had floors. We could move things! (although we waited because it's easier to paint when there's nothing in the room and the sealer needed to set) It was a weep worth thing let me tell you. Just look at the pictures and you will understand my excitement and joy. HOWEVER, this did not negate the fact there were STILL, all told about 15 coats, after you break down cuttings in, ceilings and 2 coats of paint, and heat registers, i forgot to mention those, that needed to be done (?) in 4 days. NOT going to happen.

Let the abomniations begin!

I must say signing "the papers" on a house...FAR less climactic then I would have expected. Plus is doesn't help when they say, "well its a Friday and it SHOULD get posted by 2pm. But if it doesn't, you technically don't own the house until MONDAY so, uhm yeah we'll tell you later." By 4pm we had gotten word that we did, in fact, OWN the house and by 4:45pm I was on my home got a call from MB who was bursting to tell me something. Within about 30 seconds of learning we had closed MB sprang on the house like a waiting cheetah and had ripped up the carpet in the master bedroom. "I have surprise for you when you get to the house." Well I like surprises so this was exciting! "OK, well I'll see it when I get there," I said being all of 10 minutes away. "Do you want me to just tell you now?" This means that he is going to tell me now because he CAN'T wait so I didn't argue. "(insert long loaded pause here) Well, it's kind of an abortion (I would have used abomination in this context but hey, that's what the guy said!) but...we have wood floors in the bedroom. Actually, I think we may have wood floors in ALL the bedrooms." WOW!

So here's the thing, our new/old house, is a cute 1947 ranch with a 2 car garage and a added back den. The previous owners had built and lived in the house until about 2ish years ago when it was sold to some kid...clearly this didn't go well as we ended up with it. I will never, possibly EVER understand what these people were thinking. I suppose if I try to put myself in their shoes I can understand some of the choices they made, but you will see as I progress that a common phrase NOW spoken in our house is "What F$%# where these people thinking?!"
Any who, there was carpeting in every room but the kitchen and bathroom. All three bedrooms, living room, backroom, carpeted. This, obviously HAD to go. The first & original plan was to gut the master bedroom, put in wood floors, new insulation, dry wall, ect. adnosium because MB could do this "quickly and cheaply". Good. Great. Awesome. I just wanted a new kitchen! We knew there were wood floors in the living room and hallway but assumed we would just rip up ALL the carpet and live with, what we assumed was plywood floors in the other bedrooms. No biggy, we have no children, we only need one bedroom.

As I pulled up to the house and walked cautiously into our new home (OK this right here is the strangest sensation. It didn't really FEEL any different but it was a weird sensation know this was now ours) I turn the corner to find MB on his hands and knees attacking the floor with a flat bar, ripping up TILE(?!). So THIS was the abortion he spoke of. These PEOPLE (previous owners, weirdos) had taken it upon themselves, to plaster plastic tile OVER perfectly good wood floors with...get this, TAR! Yes TAR! The only thing I can liken this to is take a big wad of bubbalicious, chew it a few times, stick it to the sidewalk, grind it in, let it bake for a few days in the summer heat....and then try to peel it off. It was something like that. So as we continue to rip up the carpet in all of the rooms, finding BEAUTIFUL wood floors in the living room (Why? How WHO DOES THAT?!) we find to our joy...and later dismay that we do indeed have wood floors, under tile/tar mixture, in all of our bedrooms. When i sent a pictures to everyone of this weird scenario I got a text back from my realtor says "welcome to the 60s". Apparently, these PEOPLE (previous owners obvi) jumped on every new trend there ever was. This including but not limited to, plastic being the revolutionary new material of the 60's (its great! its wonderful!l it's the answer to everything! Put it on your counters, your floors, your dogs its suuuppper!) and carpet being the best thing since sliced wonder bread during the 80s.

Now, Here is an important fact you should note about me: I grew up in a log house. Yes, fascinating I know, but this is VERY useful information for the rest of this blog. Think about it, I grew up surrounded by LOGS. Brown logs. Heck my aunt & uncle not only own a log home as well but my uncle is a frickin log home realtor! and my grandparents? Well by the time I knew them and they were living at 'camp'....they lived in a log home too! We had wood floors (I thought everyone did!), we didn't paint things, we didn't have siding, we didn't have drywall or horsehair plaster or WALLS we had LOGS! These are all strange new bizarre ideas to me. You will begin to understand that I've got an awful lot of enthusiasm and skills and I'm a fast, eager learner...but all those things, do not experience make.

I learned how to rip up carpet easy enough but after weekend number one, down on my hands and knees, scrapper in hand, I learned this is not the right way to break a girl into a new house! MB and I worked a whole day scrapping the floors, the plan being to sand them. The tile had all been ripped up, they needed to be scrapped once, then slathered with chemicals in sections, and scrapped again. After one day I couldn't handle it anymore. I mean I can do hard work but this was mental breakdown hard and frustrating. You scrap and you scrap and get all excited and you sit up and realize you have been so damn close to the floor that that big chunk you got up...is really itty bitty tiny. My hands were bruised, swollen, bloody and beaten...and I only did it for a day. MB had HOLES in his hands from blisters. I draw the line there. We quickly learned that many people, when faced with this nonsense, simply rip up the floors and apply new ones or refloor over them. Not us. Ohhh no! We saved a TON of money but god was it a battle.

I was prepared for this. It took, all told 2 months before MB FINISHED the floors as other projects were going on but to say that little detail put our timeline slightly off is the understatement of the century. I was prepared for this. I knew. I knew there were always going to be stupid little side projects that get in the way that must be done before you can take the next step but this was far more than I had expected.