Happy Halloween!

I added some cute pumpkin lights to my front window! Okay, so they're not very visible in this picture but it's absolutely adorable in person. Tonight has been officially declared Trick-or-Treating night by Jefferson Parish in light of some severe storms expected tomorrow night. So now I get to rush home and pull out my bag of candy!

Happy Halloween!

So, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, the mysterious floor decision! As you saw in my last post, I had narrowed my flooring options to three boards! My choices were a light Lakeshore Pecan, reddish Alameda Hickory, and medium brown Saratoga Hickory. Initially I'd fallen in love with the Alameda Hickory. However, I've always wanted dark floors so the Saratoga Hickory appealed to me. But then that Lakeshore Pecan captivated my heart. I'd decided I was 70% for the Alameda Hickory but the 30% in Lakeshore Pecan made me hesitate with my decision. I got some great advice to "follow my gut" which eventually landed me with...

The Lakeshore Pecan!

Tadaa!

That 30% nagged at my gut and really does look good with my furniture. And I think it's befitting to select this board given that New Orleans is on the Lakeshore and we used to have a Pecan tree at our old house. It was meant to be and I am very happy with it! 

Once decided upon and purchased, the boards sat in the house for a week before we were able to start with the installation. This was my first time participating in laying laminate boards; I'd missed out on my parents laying their floors. Fortunately they already had the experience, otherwise I would have been putting boards down haphazardly! Apparently a whole lot more thought goes into laying floors than just putting it down and cutting.

First you prep the door frames to make sure the boards and underlayment can fit flush against the wall.

Dad prepping the door frames

Then you roll out the underlayment! I had a bit of a time deciding on the underlayment. Everything I've read says you should not put a vapor barrier on a raised house subfloor. However, the floor instructions and the Home Depot associate said to use a vapor barrier. After speaking with my cousin, a former Home Depot flooring specialist, he confirmed that I should not use a vapor barrier and that the regular 2-in-1 underlayment would be fine. Good for me!

Two underlayment rows down!

After getting the underlayment down (which gets tricky around the closet!), Dad started with the floors! So, apparently you're supposed to have two cut boards on a row, and the smallest a piece can be is 16" long because of stability issues. I let Mom and Dad figure all the numbers out; I just told him how I wanted the boards staggered! Also, I'm terrible at connecting the boards. I struggled with that. Lesson of the day: don't let me help you install click-n-lock flooring!

The first two rows!

I don't have any more "in progress" photos. We put in about 4 more rows until calling it quits before having to do cuts around the closet. Also, there was a tropical storm raging outside! Okay, it was more like the remnants of Hurricane Patricia, but that was a hefty system that came through and my first experience of rain and tropical weather at the house. (Before then it hadn't rained in the city in over a month. In fact, it was the week after I bought the house.) It was kinda scary. We had to pick up things at the back of the house as that's the direction the wind was coming from and was driving the rain. Fortunately, the street or property never flooded, unlike my parents's neighborhood which flooded a mere two hours after we got home. I'm so proud of my little house for standing up to that bad weather!

My folks went back to the house on Dad's next day off to finish the floors. Either they couldn't wait for me or thought I was that bad at laying the floors so they went ahead without me, lol! So, I get home after work and discover this beautiful vision!

Whoa! Almost done!

They'd managed to lay the other 2/3 of the room in one day without my help which reinforces my belief that I am bad voodoo with laying floors. But how exciting is this! It looks great. Dad only had a few pieces left to cut; he's such a pro at this. Here's the video of Dad laying in the last piece!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Finished!

The photos really don't do it justice; they're a lot lighter and less reddish in person. All that's left to do is put in the baseboards, which Mom has been cleaning up for me. Once those are back in, I'll be able to move furniture in! That's pretty exciting in itself. I've opted not to paint the walls just yet (paint's expensive!!!) but fortunately these colors (the room is two-toned, Baked Scone and Cup of Cocoa) will work with my bedding and furniture so it'll stay brown for a few more months. I am no stranger to painting walls with furniture still in the room!

Here's a picture of Sully modeling the board next to the living room floors. I'm interested in continuing the Lakeshore Pecan into the rest of the bedrooms and the kitchen so I had to be sure it would go with the already existing floors. I think they're enough of a contrast to the red oak floors that it'll work well.

Sully almost blends in!

Well, that's what we've been up to with the house. This weekend we'll finish up some outstanding and high-priority projects. Then maybe next weekend I can rent a Uhaul and have a moving party! Well, maybe just Sunday; on Saturday there's a big Bama game where we get to beat LSU ;)

Cheers!