Flooring Preview?

While I was in Hyper Paint Mode downstairs in the dining room yesterday, there was a mini masterpiece being created upstairs.

On Monday while I was at work, Mike started laying the underlayment for the laminate flooring upstairs.

He started by pulling up the rest of the tack strip in all three rooms. Then he continued by sweeping up the horribly dusty and nasty floors underneath.

The dusty-nastiness is depicted well here.

Then came the underlayment. We used a brand called Quiet Walk (sold here) that was recommended by Todd at Lumber Liquidators. It it a sound-reducing underlayment that also has a moisture barrier, which is great for killing two birds.

This stuff is really easy to lay. You basically just roll it out, cut it to fit, then tape everything together using duct tape.

My brother helped me in the master bedroom.

Before I continue, you probably noticed Mike's snazzy hat and tape measure. They both came courtesy of the Lumber Liquadator's Installation Bucket (sold here).

Everything a DIY Floor Installer needs.

YES!

Anyway. Back to the flooring.

We had a lot of surprise helpers with the flooring. One such helper was a friend of Mike's dad, Joe (aka. Handyman Joe). He helped A LOT with getting the floor started and explaining the basics to us. We learned a few things from him, but most importantly we learned that we bought a difficult to install floor. Naturally.

Joe, giving lessons in flooring.

Then, Mike's dad, the extremely handy Mike Sr. stopped by to lend a hand. 

We ended the day with the room almost finished. We only had a closet and doorway left to finish. Luckily, I was able to get my brother Marco to come over and help us. I didn't get any pictures of him working, since all three of us were working together, but here is a gratuitous Mike & his Little Friend shot. While we worked in the other two rooms, we set up shop in the guest room.

Say "Hello."

So how did this all end up? Amazingly.

Quarter Round Coming Soon.

And for kicks, a before and after. But the before pic is horrible.

Picking Up Flooring + Happy Birthday Mikey !

Today... was a very hot day.

I think maybe, that because we had so much to do today, the sun decided to show out. Really make us understand just how powerful it was.

This accurately depicts what today felt like.

It was almost as if we were being punished. Punished for defying the sun by trying to do anything but tan and swim all day.

Ok. That's dramatic, but it was very hot today.

But despite the heat. We did a lot today. And most importantly, we used the hell out of Mike's dad's big truck, picking up and moving things all around Atlanta.

Our first stop. Lumber Liquidators to pick up our flooring. Mike had this funny idea that we would be picking up something like... 10 boxes of laminate. I guessed closer to 20. We learned a lot about math and estimation today.

Not 10 boxes. And not 20 boxes.

It ended up being 50 boxes. And 12 bags of underlayment. And it was kind of like... "Duh, there's only a few square feet per box." But this part was fine with me, since I actually didn't do much but take pictures of Mike and his brother moving things.

If you can't tell, It was still obnoxiously hot.

They did a great job. So great that we were done really fast. So fast that we were at the house before I knew it, and I was suddenly delegated Underlayment Duty... but it didn't take long before we were done.

Organization at its finest.

So we moved on to the next project.

For those who didn't know, Mike turned 27 on Sunday.

We had an amazing time with his parents and their friends that night, cooking recipes from the Neely's, drinking wine and Costa Rican beer, and showing them this blog :-)

He got some pretty cool stuff for his birthday. Stuff that will come in handy in the house, and especially in the kitchen... but the best gift of all... we picked up today.

YES! They got us the most amazing thing you can get to food-loving new home owners-- a new fridge!

This may not be very exciting for the average person... but for Mike and I, this is pretty close to heaven.

Details wise... its the Frigidaire FFHS2612LS (sold here). It's 26 Cubic Feet, and a side-by-side. With water and ice in the door... amazing, no? I've seriously already imagined (and been excited by) the idea of putting groceries away.

So we went to pick it up today.

Getting it in the truck? Easy. Driving with it UPRIGHT (thanks loading dock guys) all the way home? Easy. Getting it in the door?

Easier said than done.

We hit a wall. Well technically we hit styrofoam, which we took off. Then we hit door knobs, so Mathew (Mike's brother) removed the door.

And finally. It made it (very close) to its new home.

After defeating the doorway.

Finally!

It won't actually be operational for while. The kitchen still needs to be primed and painted, and the tile floors are being installed next week... but we are sooo tempted to just plug it in right in the middle of the dining room. But we will restrain ourselves.

Granite, Lumber, and Turtles OH MY.

Wow, did we do a lot today.

We started the day at United Corp. International to see if we could find a nice granite remnant for the two sinks in the upstairs bathroom.

The granite graveyard.

We were hoping to find a large enough piece of Baltic Brown granite, or St. Cecelia granite, but since our sinks were apparently NOT made to standard size (shocking, I know), all of the pieces were way too small for what we needed. So our sales guy decided to take us to another part of the warehouse where the larger remnants were located.

We didn't end up finding anything that we really liked, and instead of settling on a $400 piece of granite we kind of liked, we decided to come back to this later. We still have to paint, tile the floors, and refinish the cabinets, so there's plenty of time. But we are definitely going to go with UCI when its time. FYI, we've done a lot of research, and they most definitely have to best prices in Atlanta. And the staff is so nice!

We vowed our next stop would be more successful, so we headed over to Lumber Liquidators.

So many options...

Charisma Medway Park Merbau 7mm

We had pretty much decided on a the Medway Park Merbau laminate when we looked on the website. And since this weekend they were having a Memorial Day sale, we decided it was time to stop stalling and go ahead and get our 1200 sq. ft. of flooring.

The price was originally $1.09 per square foot, but our super-nice sales guy did us a favor because of the amount we were buying. He ended up dropping the price down to $.99 per square foot. It doesn't sound like much, but after that many square feet, underlayment, and quarter round, it helped a lot.

The only thing is we do have to come pick it up ourselves, and some how learn how to install it ourselves as well, but that's fine with us. Considering the $10,000 (yes, THOUSAND) quote Simply Floored gave us to install, we'll take the risk.

So after we made a stop at Wal-Mart we headed back to the house to finish painting. I worked on painting the edges of all of the rooms I started yesterday and painted the master bedroom, while Mike and his friend Brian attempted to install our new garage door opener... then came the rain.

Cats and dogs.

Surprisingly, besides making conditions a little more humid and gross, it didn't stop any progress. We got the motor up, front door locks changed, and all the rooms painted.

The day ended kind of weirdly. When we were getting ready to lock up and leave, Brian yelled for us to come out and see this...

Yes, that is a giant turtle. Crossing the road like its the most normal thing in the world. Considering there is only a tiny man made cement basin of a lake, and a major highway two blocks a way, we couldn't figure out where he was going, or where he came from, but it was kind of neat to see.