I know I’m terrible about updating now, but since we actually did something new to the house I guess it’s time to stop being so slack!We decided to pull up the carpet in the living/dining rooms and down both hallways in order to put down hardwood floors. The dogs were absolutely killing the living room carpet since they have the doggie door and essentially one big mud pit for a back yard.

We (and by we, I really mean Tim) installed the floors ourselves. Here is a picture account of the process, which was a really big PITA:

First, Tim had to tear up the old hardwoods in the little mini-foyer. They were glued to the floor by much more glue than was necessary, and it was TERRIBLE trying to get all of the glue up:

Then, Tim ripped up all of the carpet. That was much easier. The baseboards were a serious pain, though, because our builder also used much more CAULK than was necessary and we ended up having to buy new baseboards in the end. It’s ok; Cocoa had left teeth marks in a lot of them anyway.

Oh yeah. We painted the hallway as well. I thought it was a good time to do it, since we had no baseboards to tape and we didn’t care if the carpet was ruined.

The guy who sold us the flooring gave us upgraded padding for free. Bobo & Cocoa kept laying on it all day long. We had to roll it out all over the floor.

The beginning. Tim assigned me to glue cleaning duty. I cleaned glue between the joints with a damp cloth, dried it, then used painter’s tape in several places between every joint (this was a tip from the floor guy).

In progress…

Bobo approved. Cocoa was kind of scared of the floor, so she stayed outside most of the weekend. When she came in, she refused to leave the kitchen.

Day 1 done. We finished the living room on the first day, and just had to complete the hallway on the second day. Both of us were really sore.

Here is what the living room looked like after I took the tape off. Pretty!