We’re starting to see a little color now, and the last of the wallpaper is gone. Can’t wait to see what it looks like in a week or two when the walls and floors are done, not to mention the kitchen re-do.

They finished installing all the hardwood floors on February 3rd. Now they sit for a while and then will be sanded and a clear coat will be applied (probably some time next week (Feb 13-ish). A video and some pics below to capture making it to one big milestone.

The hardwood floors are scheduled to be installed beginning January 30, so the past weekend was spent making final preparations. That included: removing the chair lift from the staircase, removing the carpet/padding/carpet tack strips from the stairs, making sure the floors were clean, and screwing down the subfloor to minimize squeaking. Let’s just say my back, shoulders, forearms, and hands are paying the price for a LOT of labor.

The flooring company took out the olden kitchen floor, which was something we didn’t think we could do ourselves and we were right. It took three guys, who do this all the time, the better part of a day to get it all out, and they had WAY better tools than we do for the task. New hardwood floors are scheduled to start going in on January 30.

Friday (January 20) our contractor took out the peninsula cabinets and countertop in the kitchen, and took out the laminate “supposed to look like hardwood” floors. The flooring company will take out the layer of linoleum and underlayment next and then hardwood will be going in on the entire main floor. Here are pics from the cabinet removal.

It feels like the past 7-10 days have been consumed with removing wallpaper and taking out underlayment. Actually, the 7-10 days really HAVE been consumed with those things. We’re working on the house after work during the week and each day on the weekend. Not fun, but we’re making progress.

The good news is that we have all the wallpaper down from the kitchen and dining room, and most of it down from the family room. We also have all the underlayment removed from the dining room, living room, downstairs bedroom/office, and family room.

The bad news is that we still have all of the hallway, foyer, and upstairs hallway wallpaper to remove, and the multiple layers of flooring in the kitchen to tear out, plus the underlayment on the landing upstairs to get out. The grind continues.

Video showing what the basement/apartment looked like when we got the house.

Posting video of the new abode to show the “before” and remind us later in life about all the changes we are making.

Here’s a video I shot on the day we closed on our new house. Just posting here for posterity’s sake.