Flooring - Part One

In honor of our 10th Anniversary, Jeremy and I decided we would take the plunge and re-do some flooring in our house (okay, actually it's almost a complete house re-do!). When we purchased the house, the carpet upstairs was not in good shape with lots of stains and bunching. We looked into having the carpet stretched but were advised it is better to save your money and put it towards new carpet. About a week ago, we got our new carpet! It was a bit of hassle to move furniture from several rooms into one, but the whole process went much smoother than I anticipated. Below is a before and after picture. The new carpet is a lighter version of the carpet we have in our family room.



Like the carpeting, there were some issues with our tile floor on the main level when we purchased the house. There were several cracked tiles, and recently the grout had been coming up at an alarming pace. (We've learned that the tile was not correctly installed.) In addition, the tile is VERY COLD in the winter, and we spend a lot of time downstairs and in the kitchen. In Montana, we had hardwood floors and LOVED them. So decided to have new engineered hardwood floors put down in the kitchen, dining room (aka the living room) and the foyer. We're also having the stairs done in wood.


To save some money, we decided to demo the tile ourselves. Jeremy did all the back breaking work, and I was super proud of him! He rented an air hammer that had a flat blade chisel attachment. This made the process much easier. We tried removing the tile via crowbar in the pantry area and that took a long time. Trevor was delighted in helping us clean up the tile, and was bummed when we completed the whole project.

Trevor carrying tile to his red bucket.

Clean up! What a dusty mess the tile made!

All the tile gone! YEAH!

Tomorrow (Friday, Sept 4) is the first day of hardwood installation. We picked a newer product that is hand scraped and is very durable. You can easily cover scratches, dings, etc.. with a black permanent marker or furniture stain pen. The flooring saga will continue in: Flooring - Part Deux. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!