DIY Ranch Reno: January 2017

Well, I really would have liked to finish the reno before the holidays, but, as you can see, I didn't. At least the flooring is all done now. I started installing it about a week before Thanksgiving. My new short-term goal was at least to get the dining area and kitchen floor down before the kids got back for Thanksgiving break. We weren't hosting, but our new dining room table and chair set was scheduled to be delivered the Saturday before Thanksgiving, so I wanted to be able to have a sit-down family dinner, at least.

If you recall from my first post (interesting to see what it used to look like), the flooring we purchased way back in the spring of 2015 was Bellawood's Brazilian Pecan from Lumber Liquidators. One thing for sure is that it had plenty of time to acclimate! I also purchased a professional flooring kit from Home Depot, which worked out great. I took Friday off from work and started in the corner of the dining area. Things started off pretty well.

Starting the floor

When I got to the end of the peninsula on the dining room side, I realized that I would have to measure pretty accurately so that I could start laying the flooring in the corner of the kitchen, to the left of the dishwasher, and then end up matching the flooring at the end of the peninsula on the kitchen side. Well, guess what. I ended up with a quarter-inch gap. Ugh! That was at 11:30 on Saturday night. I was so bummed. I knew what I had to do, but I was dreading it. I went to bed.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, I asked Maura what she thought of the floor. She really liked it. Then I showed her the issue I had. I explained that the right thing to do was to pry up all of the flooring I had laid in the kitchen, pull the nails out of each piece, lay it out in the living room in the same pattern, move the first row out a quarter of an inch, and then reinstall it. It actually didn't end up being as bad as it sounds, and the result is that it ended up coming out great after redoing it.

Looks good, but this part had to be redone.

Success wrapping around the peninsula after relaying the kitchen floor.

Here's what it looked like the Monday before Thanksgiving.

After Thanksgiving, my next short-term goal was to get the floor done in the hallway before the kids got back for Christmas break. I knew that this was going to be time consuming because I would have to rip each of the edge pieces and make custom transition pieces for the bathroom, three bedrooms, and basement doorways.

Making progress in the hallway.

I must say that it was nice to finally have a floor back in the hallway because it had been a while since we pulled up the carpet.

From the other direction.

Fast-forward to after the holidays. While the kids were home on break, I continued the flooring into the living room. Our new TV was delivered the week after Christmas, so I hung that on the wall. The piece below it will probably not end up there, but for now it's working.