These Are The Days: New Flooring

Due to my persistent and obsessive nature (and the fact that I didn't have a job to go to at the time) we won a contest and earned a $2,000 gift certificate to a local flooring company. After mulling over lots of different options for what we could do to stretch the money, we decided to put laminate down in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, and stairway. Neither of us had ever laid laminate flooring down, but when we found out we could cover more than twice as much square footage if we laid it ourselves, we quickly acted like we could do it with no problem.
Throughout the week Travis pulled up the old flooring slowly but surely. When he doesn't get home until 6:30 or 7, by the time we eat dinner there's only a small window of time before it's time to get Evalee settled in for bed. But we (he) cracked at it slowly, and by Friday he had the dining room, hallway, and stairs all ready to go. Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Eric came over Friday night and helped pull up the living room carpet so we would be ready to go Saturday morning. We discovered some rotten pieces of subflooring in the living room, thus proving you can never had a house project without something unexpected cropping up.
We celebrated Travis's birthday the next day with lots of head scratching and sweat. Grandma and Papa Kershaw came up from Virden with Alex, and Eva made sure she disappeared for most of the day in the backyard. I don't know for sure what all went on back there, but I do know they were laughing and running and playing with water enough to go through several outfits and popsicles and were both very tired toddlers after dinner. I was so thankful Grandma came up because I was certainly not up for keeping her busy outside of the house all day long. By the end of the night the men had gotten in their groove, and by the time everyone left we had all but a little chunk of the living room and hallway done.
Again, we tried to work on it just the two of us when Travis got home from work each night, but with less hands the boards were much harder to get snapped into place. We averaged about 2 pieces a night. We clearly needed help if we were ever going to get it finished. So, the crew minus Uncle Eric and Alex came back for a round 2 the following Saturday. By that time we (they) were a well-oiled machine and we were able to finish all the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallway (minus a small section). Now all Daddy has left is the hallway piece, the stairs, and the landing and then he can put the trim back up. It sure was (is) a long process, but I'm glad we have such great people in our lives that were willing to help us so we could buy so many more materials with our winnings. We LOVE the change and do not for one second wish we had the carpet back!