And . . . the floors are revealed!

We've spent the last 4 days on flooring. Not literally 4 days, but we started on Saturday, made progress on Sunday, and resumed last night. It's so fun.

M thought the best place to start would be in front of the living room slider--since that's a place that won't have furniture in front of it, will be readily seen, etc. It took about 2 hours to get the first row laid. Turns out the walls in our house are not square (as is, I've been made to understand, typical) so we (she) had to account for that laying the first row. Apparently if the first row is off, it will get worse, or grow as the courses go down.

The first photo is last week--a shot of M trying to get the old, original floor level. Easier said than done. This is asphalt paper going down to help even it out. Then a couple shots of the first rows of progress!

Looks like fun, no? Thank goodnes for knee pads!

The first two rows.

Close up.

The second row going down, looking toward kitchen.

First we laid kraft paper under the flooring, but under that (the black above in the upper right corner) is asphalt paper used to help level the floor.

Saturday we ran out of time to do much more than those first two rows, but Sunday we were back at it and got about 9 more rows laid. It's slow going.

Mid way through Sunday

Mid way through Sunday, looking the other way

The flooring is Acacia. We both really like the variation and movement, though we know some people may not be a fan. It's funny because the house we're in now, built in the 50's, has it's original narrow oak hardwood. I always think of oak as very consistent, color wise. But ours really has a ton of variation if you really look at it. Though our new floors seem pretty busy, we think that once we get furniture in, it'll be appear less busy. The real test is that every time we walk in we are wowed by it. I'm so pleased with our choice.

We've gotten a system down, and M is waiting until evenings when I can come work after my day job to lay more. She does the down and dirty stuff, and has a sore back and knees to show for it. She nails and makes sure we're still straight, while I open boxes, plan color and length randomness (a bit more of a challenge than I might have imagined) and layout pieces for her. We're finding a lot of pieces that have more or more significant filler than I'd like, or look way too light or way too muddy, so we're saving those for under the appliances, in the closet, etc. I hope it comes out ok. It's been so fun to see it go down.

We worked again about 3 hours yesterday evening, and have about 18 courses down. We're about 2/5 across the living room.

The biggest challenge is keeping Willie off the floor. He loves to look out the slider (it's up about 4-5 feet from the ground below--deck still needs to be built) and we're trying to keep him off the new floor for the time being. I'd like to be the first one to scratch it, not the dog!

Willie trying to be a good boy and stay on the sub floor