Floor!

Well, the hardwood is pretty well done on the main floor.  And oh em gee it is so nice.  After living with plywood floors for over a year, any floor would have been welcome, really, but this stuff is just quite superb.

With the help of the very talented Eva Kovalcik of Atlanta, GA we now have a plan for the new kitchen.  Looking at that plan (which I'll share on another day) and the layout of the rest of the house we decided where we wanted to lay tile for the kitchen.  Once we had that figured out, Derek got right to work laying down the rest of the hardwood.

It took us around a day and a half to finish up and man we're a good team.

When you're using the random length boards there are a few "rules" to keep in mind.  Between one row and the two behind it you don't want any joints within 6" of each other, and you want to keep a good mix of long and short boards.  So, picking out the right size boards is sort of like a puzzle, and I'm never one to shy away from a puzzle.  I may have exclaimed a time or two (after laying out a perfectly spaced row that created very little waste) "I'm good at this game".  I would get the next row or so of boards ready while Derek came behind me with the stapler.  Working together we were able to just fly.

Here's what it looks like now.

Derek still has a bit of work to do on the stair nosing going towards the back door, and the baseboard still needs to go down, but we're starting to get there.

Now, to get going on the kitchen!