working hard

Way back in October, I wrote about how we needed to get some work done around the house before the new baby made his or her arrival. Well, I finally got that ball rolling. I’ve been busy the last week and a half.

The weekend before last, I started to clean out the old master bedroom (our bedroom is an addition on the first floor). There was a lot of stuff that we threw out (we actually packed a lot of this stuff up when we moved two years ago—why didn’t we just toss it out then?) and some stuff we gave back (my mom had given us a antique tea cart that we had in our dining room in the old house but had no where for it in this house). Some stuff was set aside for a yard sale we hope to have this summer. The rest of the stuff had to be moved out of the way until the project is complete.

Out of the way is a misnomer. There is furniture in Natasha’s room that doesn’t belong (an antique rocking chair and table, a small Ikea couch, and some framed paintings. In the office is a leaf to our dinning room table, an area rug, and a TV. In the basement is just about everything else.

Anyway, the room was cleared of all furniture and miscellaneous crap. Next I had carpeting to remove. The carpet was in pretty nasty shape, but not as bad as what we took out of the office (soon to be the new nursery) or Natasha’s bedroom. The carpet padding went out next. Then, about 10,000 staples. Apparently, the jackass who installed the carpet A) was using the power stapler for the first time and B) didn’t care about the hardwood floors he was being paid to cover.
By this point, I was in “destructo-mode” so I tore out the carpet tack, the baseboards, and the trim around the doors. The only thing left was the ceiling fan and the door. I even got out the power saw to cut down all the wood so I could box it for pick-up.

Friday night I went to Home Depot to rent the drum sander. A drum sander is kinda like a $4,000 lawn mower. Except that it sands instead of cuts. You walk behind it and use a lever to drop and raise the drum onto the floor. After three hour of sanding the white oak was looking quite nice. Sunday, I rented an edger sander and cleaned up the edges that the drum sander can’t reach. After an hour and a half, I had what looked like brand-new hardwood floors.

Tonight I have to stain them and Friday I’m taking the day off to add the polyurethane. By next week, I hope to have the furniture moved back in so I can start on the room that will become the nursery.

The floors look awesome right now though. I said something to Beth about how glad I am to be done and she asked, “Done?” I seem to have forgotten that there is still another room to sand and stain, rooms to be painted, baseboards and doors to purchase and install, and a bathroom that needs to be remodeled too. Looks like I have the longest “honey-do” list ever.